


Made It So Sweet, 'Til

by Damalia (Achrya)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dark Eren Yeager, Dark Marco Bott, Death, Emotional Manipulation, Gore, Language, M/M, Mind Games, Mindfuck, Sexual Content, Violence, Yandere Eren Yeager, Yandere Marco Bott
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:00:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6226696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Damalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future Diary [Mirai Nikki] AU</p><p>Armin is an observer. He sits back, letting the world go by, and keeps a record of it in a diary app on his cellphone. Nothing interesting ever happens to *him* and that's how he likes it. It's safe and easy...and then it's not. He's given a diary that appears to tell the future and is dropped in the middle of a game for survival at all costs. Lucky for him he's got Eren, Jean, and Marco on his side. All they have to do is stay alive and everything will be fine...right?</p><p>The deeper into the game they get the more clear it becomes that danger comes from more than just the outside. Sometimes the devil you know isn’t really the one you know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wide Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Such crazy. I hope you are strapped in. Tags will update as we go. 
> 
> And a special thanks to OverMyFreckledBody who was subject to my late night rambling.

This was a familiar dream. He was in a room with a domed ceiling, open in some parts to let in streams of pink light. The room itself was made of slowly turning and clicking gears, clock hands that ‘tocked’ as they moved through the air, and the ground was one large clock face, golden roman numeral numbers etched around the outside. This too had hands on it, though they were  frozen at 1 and 2, just as they were every time he was there.  

In the center of the room was a strange looking being reclining on a floating throne. She was vaguely human in that she had two arms and a head, but everything about her was bone white, save her long reddish-brown hair, and elongated to almost comical proportions. She looked to be made of metal and sometimes he could hear the same clock-like rocking coming from the throne and, perhaps, inside of her. He wasn’t sure how tall she was exactly, since she only ever sat, but he was sure he could fit easily into the palm of her hand.

She tilted her head to the side, glasses catching the light. “One moment, I’m working on something and I can’t be interrupted now.”

He swung his legs around so they were dangling over the edge of his bed, the only part of his room that ever came with him to these dreams. “Another game?”

Her long skeleton-like fingers danced over the keys of the massive computer she sat in front of. She smiled, a shadow falling over her face, and laughed softly. “Yes. My greatest game yet.”

He nodded then reached to fish his phone out from under his pillow; he was familiar with her ‘games’, though experiments would have been a better term for it. She sat upon her throne, poking and prodding at humanity, giving it so-called ‘jolts’ when needed to keep it on it’s proper path.

She called herself Hanji and claimed to be the God of Space and Time.

He figured that, in a dream logic way, it made sense that his ‘imaginary’ friend would be some kind of puppet master, able to change events and influence people when he himself could do none of that. He was just an observer, someone who watched and cataloged events while doing his best to stay out of them.

He didn’t really remember when he’d started dreaming of this place or when it had become something he could sink into even when he was awake; all he knew was that it, and they, were always there waiting for him.

He thumbed open his diary app and began tapping out an entry when a scoff made him look up. Mikasa had appeared in front of him, seemingly melting out of the very air, and was frowning at him. Her long dark hair was help up by a blood red ribbon, like it always was, and her fingers twitched over the frayed ends.

“Writing again?” She asked, gray eyes narrowing. "How do you have so much to write about?”

He smiled up at her. He liked Mikasa, perhaps more than he did Hanji. She had a strange warmth about her and was more interested in his everyday life than the huge godly being was. She’d told him time and again that he needed to stand up on his own and stop hiding away and relying on others.

“I just...make notes. Time and location, things I see.” As he spoke he angled it for her to see.

_Hanji has appeared. Hanji is up to something._

Mikasa’s tail, long and narrow with a pointed spade shape on the end, flicked. “You don’t think that’s a little directionless?”

He shrugged and looked down at the dimly lit screen. It was sort of directionless, pointless even since it wasn’t as if he ever looked back at the entries or making them did anything, but it suited him. It was easier to sit back and watch the world go by, recording it, then to act on it or let it act on him.

She sighed then ruffled his hair affectionately. “Being a little more involved might not be such a bad thing.”

“Mikasa.” Hanji’s sharp tone echoed in the domed room. Mikasa arched an eyebrow, seemingly unrepentant, as she stepped away from him. Hanji’s throne turned so the full force of her intense gaze was on him. “I do suppose it is time. Armin I’m going to be giving you something.”

He blinked. Neither Hanji or Mikasa had ever given him anything before, unless Mikasa’s advice counted. “For what?”

Hanji’s face, more of a skull like mask than anything really ‘human’, shifted until something like a smile appeared on her lips. “Do you ever wish you could change the world?”

He opened his mouth to say no then stopped, eyes flickering down to his hands as he thought about his parents. About Mrs. Jaeger. About the boys who pushed him around in school.

He heard Hanji shifting, a rustle of fabric and that ever present tick-tock-tick. “Very well. I shall give you the future.”

“The-”

“Armin!” The dome rattled and dust showered down from above. The sound of his name being called was so loud it made his teeth rattle and ears ring. “Armin!”

He jerked awake with a gasp, sitting up and lashing out with his hand at the booming noise. He came up empty and was considering swinging away when he saw a familiar outline out of the corner of his eye. Of course. Who else would it be?

He sighed and flopped back, hand coming down over his chest like that would stop the frantic beating his heart was doing.

Laughter filled his small bedroom as his bed dipped down. He turned slightly to glare at Eren balefully; the older boy had tears of mirth running down his cheeks.

“Jerk.”

“Yeah yeah. Get up and get dressed.” Eren wiped at his eyes once his laughter had subsided. “Your grandpa left a note, he’s gonna be late tonight but I was thinking about coming by and making dinner anyway to that works out.”

Armin shook his head as he finally sat up fully. “You don’t have to-”

“Tch.” Eren turned away, flapping a hand at him. “I want to. I’ll make breakfast too so hurry up.”

There wasn’t much else to say so Armin rolled out of bed and hurried to jump in the shower. Arguing would be nothing but a waste of time; Eren would do precisely what he wanted to do and Armin would let him, just like he’d been doing since they were toddlers and the Jaegers had moved in next door. Eren had come running into his life, covered in mud and screaming at the top of his lungs to take him by the hand and forced him to play out in the dirt even though Armin had cried the entire time.  

That was more or less how things still were, just with less crying. Eren still lead the way and he followed as best he could, albeit a little less these days. Eren was everything Armin wasn’t: good at sports, easy to get along with, strong, brave, well liked by everyone around them, had a constant trail of admirers and so on and so on.

Armin was just...Armin, which was probably why Eren was his only friend. He’d tried to make more when he was younger, back in primary and middle school, but in the end people always seemed to just start avoiding him like he was some kind of time bomb waiting to go off

The only time other kids seemed to pay attention to him was when they were pushing him around and even that was rare since no one dared do it when Eren was around. They’d probably stop all together if Eren ever found out but he didn’t want to cause the other any more trouble than putting up with him already was. A few bumps and bruises wasn’t so bad, really.

Though today was the day Eren stayed late at school so maybe he would try a different route home just in case.

He was toweling off his hair, frowning as he considered how to avoid any trouble later that day, when his phone chimed. He blinked in surprise then rolled his eyes; it was probably Eren telling him to hurry up. Who else would bother sending him a text?

What he saw, however, wasn’t a message but an alert that his diary app had opened up on it’s own. He swiped over the screen, shrugging slightly. Nothing like that had ever happened before but that was fine, he wanted to update it-

_7:38 AM, Kitchen: Eren made blueberry pancakes and bacon_

_7:40, Kitchen: A story about those murders is on the news, this time it was really close. They’re saying the murder escaped through the school_

_8:07, Sina Street, Connie Springer trips and falls_

_8:08, Sina Street: Saw Marco Bodt help Connie to his feet_

The time on his phone read 7:35 and, when he looked towards his wall clock, it showed the same. He looked back at the entries and found they hadn’t changed any. Had he written them in his sleep while he was having the dream?  

“Armin!” Eren shouted. “C’mon.”

He tossed on his clothes and was down in the kitchen a moment later, the smell of bacon making his mouth water. He rounded the corner then stopped, eyes zooming in on the sight of a stack of pancakes on the table.

Maybe Eren had gotten into his phone? He was always on him about spending less time with his nose pressed against his phone screen and more time actually doing stuff? Maybe messing with him was...what?

It didn’t really sound much like something Eren would do.

“Finally.” Eren said as he dropped the syrup down. “You take forever every morning.”

“And yet you’re surprised.” Armin shot back as he sat down. He speared some of the pancakes, not nearly as surprised as he should have been to see the dark spots to marked blueberries in them. “Hey, Eren?”

“Hmm?” The brunette asked around a mouthful of food. He was inhaling food with one hand and fumbling with the remote for the TV in the living room with the other. Armin couldn’t see it from where he was but Eren would be able to.

“Did you do-”

“Breaking News! Another brutal killing in Mitras tonight, this time near Sina Senior High.” Armin’s fork dropped from nerveless fingers as he turned around to look. The reporter looked appropriately distressed, eyes wide and cheeks tastefully flushed. “ A police insider reports the murder is thought to have fled the scene through the high school The victim-”

The TV went dead, cutting off whatever was coming next. When he turned his attention back to Eren is was to find blue-green eyes narrowed and his mouth pressed into a thin bloodless line. He hadn’t seen Eren look that angry since...well, since that time Jean had shoved him down the stairs and broken his arm in freshman year.

That had been the only time he could recall ever being really afraid of Eren.

Then, all at once, his face cleared and he smiled easily. “Shouldn’t watch that stuff. It’ll give you nightmares.”

Armin forced himself to laugh then looked back down at his plate, unsure if he should ask Eren about the weird entries in his phone. Eren didn’t seem to find the killings funny, and they weren’t but if not Eren than who? It didn’t-

_I shall give you the future_

Armin chewed on a slice of bacon slowly as he remembered his dream. Then shook it off.

“You didn’t mess with my phone did you? While I was in the shower?”

Eren’s eyebrows went up. “Because I can get past your password and thumbprint thing? You protect that thing better than you do yourself. The front door was unlocked again, by the way.”

“No one is trying to get me of all people.”

“Hmm.” Eren hummed. “Why’d you ask?”

Armin froze then shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about his imaginary friends with anyone but least of all Eren. He knew his friend had to already think he was strange, no reason to add delusional on top of that.

“It was just in a weird spot. I probably moved it and forgot.”

It was just coincidence. He must have added that stuff himself and...well Eren cooked for him a lot, most mornings and dinner a lot of nights, so it wasn’t like he’d made some huge leap. And the murders were big news so maybe it had just been on his mind.

A coincidence.

“Probably.”

\---

The coincidences kept coming. He and Eren were walking among the usual crowd of students, Eren gesturing wildly as he explained what an asshole Mr. Reiss, their homeroom and first period teacher, was for keeping him after for library duty the night before, when out of the corner of his eye Armin saw Connie trip mid-bounce, almost toppling Jean and Sasha with him. Connie hit the ground with a yelp and, after a moment of surprised silence, laughter rippled through the crowd.

Marco, another student in their year, melted out of the crowd to offer a hand to Connie.

Armin craned his neck to watch even after they’d passed the two other boys.

“Something wrong?” Eren asked.

“I...what’s Marco doing over here? Doesn’t he live in the opposite direction?” And, now that he was thinking about, Marco should have had rugby practice this morning anyway. What was he doing coming from the same direction they were when he should have already been at school anyway?

Eren nudged him playfully. “How do you know that? Been paying attention to Marco?”

Armin’s attention snapped forward so fast he was sure he heard his neck pop. A look around showed that no one was listening, thank god. He glared up at Eren, who was smiling teasingly. Though there was some tension around his eyes and-

Or maybe he was squinting because it was bright out.

His imagination was really running away with him today.

“No. Shut up. I pay attention to everything.”

Eren laughed and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, tugging him close. “He wouldn’t be any good for you anyway.”

“What? Please. Marco’s...you know.” Godly. A nice as he was smart and talented and, from Armin’s casual locker room observations, had a stomach a person could grate cheese on.

Rugby did amazing things to a person’s body or so it seemed.

Not that Armin was interested or put a lot of stock in that sort of thing because he didn’t. He’d just noticed was all. He was sure whatever Marco’s type may have included short skinny antisocial guys like him weren’t making the grade. He knew what ‘out of his league’ looked like and wasn’t going to be getting his hopes up.

Eren shook his head. “Nope. All wrong for you ‘Mini, trust me. I know exactly the kind of guy you need and it’s not Marco Bodt.”

Armin smiled wryly. “If you say so.”

“I do.” Eren squeezed him in a half hug. “Stay after today and walk home with me, k? I want to stop at the store and pick up something for dinner.”

After that, and managing to escape Eren’s octopus like grasp, the walked and talked mostly about dinner and Armin's inability to lock his front door. By the time they reached their classroom Eren had invited himself over for the night and was flipping through his phone to see if a 'Lock Your Door Idiot' app existed. Armin was pretty sure it didn't. He slipped into his seat, shaking his head at Eren's increasingly frustrated expression, and took out his own phone. The same alert, informing him that his diary had launched, was on the screen. 

He swallowed nervously then unlocked the screen to check. 

_8:25, Mr. Reiss' Classroom: We were given a pop quiz_

_1\. A_

_2\. c_

_3\. E_

Armin covered the screen and looked around frantically to make sure no one else was looking his way. 

Then peeked again.

_22\. B_

_23\. A_

It was an answer key! For the pop quiz? Were those actually the right answers? Was that possible? There was no way! ...Was there! 

"Class!" Mr. Reiss called their attention as the homeroom bell rang. "There's a quiz on everything we've covered in European History so far this semester as soon as the next bell rings. I suggest you use the next five minutes wisely." 

Armin chewed on his bottom lip anxiously. What was going on? How was this possible? ...should he use the answers? There was no way they were right, right? It was impossible. Even if he'd somehow known about the quiz, maybe overheard the teacher mentioning something, there was no way he'd know the answers. 

It was impossible

\---

They were the right answers. 

"You got a perfect?" Eren plucked the paper from his hands after class. "Damn. Nice job; maybe you should start tutoring me." 

"Yeah." Armin said weakly. "Maybe." 

The grin Eren tossed him was almost sharp, showing off too much teeth, but Armin's thoughts were too busy elsewhere to think much of it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We might get some varying PoVs (Jean most likely. ). I haven't decided yet.


	2. You Belong With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of bad dates and rabbit suits; some people are up to things, some of them succeed and others...well. Well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a Jearmin date here in this chapter but this is Not, I repeat NOT, a Jermin fic. This is literally the closest they'll get to romance and...well. Also pink rabbits on a rampage. ...don't look at me like that. It's plot relevant.

As soon as Armin was able to get out of class he had his things gathered and was running down the hall and out the building, all of his thoughts on getting home and speaking to Hanji. It was stupid, ridiculous really to think that Hanji had somehow given his phone the ability to see the future, but it was the only thing that made any sense.

Except it didn’t make any sense,  none at all, because Hanji was supposed to be something he’d thought up one night when he’d been sad and lonely and Eren hadn’t been there. She wasn’t real and couldn’t give him some weird magical phone powers!

There was no god of time and space and even if there was, and there wasn’t, they wouldn’t spend their time talking to a teenage boy would they?

He took a slightly different route that normal because the diary told him he’d be stopped by two police officers who wanted to talk about the murders and, while he could tell it wouldn’t take that long, he didn’t want to spare the time.

He thought he saw them, two tall and broad men in suits, one with golden hair and the other with dirty blond hair that hung over his face, turning off of his block just as he turned on at the opposite end but he couldn’t really be sure.

Only he was sure. The phone hadn’t been wrong yet, informing him of just about everything that went on around him that he would have bothered recording himself. When Sasha cut her finger in home ec, when Connie got in face at lunch only to slink off under Eren’s glare, when Annie dropped the homework in 6th period on the floor: it was all in there.

He burst into the house, slamming the door shut after him and scrambled up to his room. He sat on the bed then, cursing softly in his head, willed himself to calm down. His heart was beating frantically and he could barely breathe after the mad dash home, lungs tight and chest heaving. He’d only ever gone to the domed room in his sleep, or near enough to sleep that the distinction didn’t matter, and nearly hyperventilating wasn’t going to help any.

He closed his eyes and tried to draw air into screaming lungs. He needed to be calmer so he could think this all through. Whatever was going on was weird, yes, but it wasn’t bad. The opposite, really. So why was he freaking out?

When was the last time something good had happened to him anyway.

He breathed out and opened his eyes, a jolt of surprise running through him when he was he was in the domed room. Mikasa was floating lazily in the air, batlike wings beating slowly, and Hanji sat in her throne, silent and watchful.

Had he just…? He shook himself and stood up to stand on the clock face that served as the ground. He held up his phone; Hanji’s face shifted and what served as her eyebrows, bone white protrusions above her eyes, lifted.

“This phone…it’s?”

“A diary that tells your future.” Hanji said easily, lips quirking up. “I did tell you I’d be giving you the future, did I not?”

She said it like she found him foolish and adorable, like a stupid puppy, and he scowled up at her even as his heart started to thud against his ribs.

“How? How can you know my future? Anyone’s future?” He demanded. “You aren’t real! I...I dreamed you. This is in my head.”

Wasn’t it? Hadn’t it always been?

Was he wrong? Going crazy somehow?

“I am a god.” Her skeletal arm swept out and her hand raised up in a mockingly grand gesture. “Can I not choose to reside where I want, even your mind?”

Mikasa sighed and touched down on the floor next to Armin. She touched his arm lightly then whispered. “She isn’t good with boundaries.”

He stared at her, unable to begin to form the words the address something like that or the fact that Hanji and Mikasa were apparently real, very very real, and had been all this time and Oh, also, he had a phone that told his future.

...which wasn’t so bad.

Actually none of it was bad, really. He liked Hanji and Mikasa was his friend and them not being imaginary was probably a good thing since he was a little old for fake friends in all honesty. The diary was useful. Why was he freaking out again?

“However that diary that tells your future has a drawback.” Hanji added, lowering her hand and once again fixing her gaze on him, expression deadly serious. “A future diary and it’s keeper are one.”

The air above her hand crackled with electricity and then a phone appeared, an exact replica of his own. So much so that he had to look into his hand and be sure that the weight he felt was really there.

“Should your diary be destroyed your future will end as well. In other words, Armin, you will die.”

\---

The next two weeks went by surprisingly fast.

At first he was too afraid to do anything but stay curled up under his blankets clutching his phone to his chest-which had been useful when insisting to Eren that he hadn’t stayed after school because he wasn’t feeling well- but after a missed day of school he’d started thinking about things logically. He had the phone and could see the future so he would know if anything bad was going to happen to him, or it, so there was no reason to be so afraid, right?

If he was supposed to die the phone would let him know and then he’d just...avoid it. What could hurt a person who saw everything coming? He had a cheat sheet not just to school but to life!

He could avoid saying or doing the wrong thing, going to the wrong places, and all of the other things that made him so anxious. He had an ‘I win’ button in his hand and nothing would be able to end his future while he had it.

There was nothing to be afraid of.

Once he’d decided on that everything else had sort of fallen into place. With the phone he found himself breezing through tests (not that he was bad in school or stupid because he wasn’t...he’d just never tested well. But if someone needed an analytical essay on the use of color in Lord of the Flies he was all over that.), managing his time a little better and, most importantly, avoiding his bullies. It was laughably easy to avoid getting pushed around on the nights Eren had practice or had to stay over for cleaning or library duty now.

He couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of the boys who picked on him waiting around behind the school or along the route he normally walked just waiting for him while he was safe and sound somewhere else.

Everything was perfect right up until he checked his phone the Wednesday morning two weeks after getting his phone and saw typed in the same bland and unassuming way that everything else was:

_Classroom, lunch time: Jean asked me out on a date._

_Nurses Office, 1:13 pm: The nurse informed me I hyperventilated and fainted_.

There were other entries after, though none had Jean’s name in them, but he couldn’t focus on them enough to really see what they were saying. The phone almost slipped from his nerveless fingers. He snapped back to attention at the last moment then juggled it before pulling it close to his chest, breathing hard.

He doubted a fall onto his bedroom floor would have hurt it but he couldn’t risk it when his life was literally at stake. One he was sure he wouldn’t he dropping it he let himself slide down to the floor in a heap.

Jean...was going to ask him out? Jean Kirschstein? Of course that Jean, it wasn’t like he knew any others, that was stupid to even wonder about but...how? Why?

Was the phone broken? Had it finally gotten something wrong? There was no way Jean, the very person who’d shoved him around and made him feel like shit for all of his formative years, was going to be asking him out. For one Jean dated girls...or had, so far. Which didn’t rule out liking guys as well, it wasn’t like Armin was privy to his private thoughts or anything but

Jean?

Him?!

They hadn’t had a real conversation since freshman year when Jean had come to the hospital to apologize to him. They’d parted on decent enough terms; he’d been pumped full of pain medication and Jean had been a crying mess so accepting his apology had come easy and on reflection it still seemed genuine.

Jean had been pale and shaking, eyes wide like looking at Armin was on par with seeing a ghost, and stuttered out a broken ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I did that or any of things I did, I’m so sorry’. It felt real and not like something he’d put on to avoid trouble.

And then Eren had spotted him in the hospital’s parking lot and done his utmost best to pop Jean’s head off of his body by applying pressure to his throat.

It was safe to say they didn’t travel in the same circles. There wasn’t any outright animosity, at least on Armin’s part, but he wasn’t under some illusion that Jean liked him or even thought about him at all.

So what was going on?

He spent the entire morning in a state of near panic. Eren asked him if he was doing okay at least a dozen times and even went so far as to press a hand to his forehead to check for a fever before finally allowing accepting that Armin didn’t need to be babied.

What he needed to do was decide what he should do. Hide during lunch and hope that Jean didn’t try to ask he out some other time? Say yes? Say no? Faint like the diary said he was going to, thus humiliating himself in front of the only boy who was, for whatever reason, interested in asking him out?

No no, not that.

He wished he had an answer laid out for him, a right or wrong path like everything else he’d changed since getting the future diary but...well, he’d just have to figure it out himself. He could do that, couldn’t he?

He was going to stay calm. He was going to not be a fuck up! He was going to look Jean in the eye and act like a normal person and not like an anxiety ridden mess who kept everyone but Eren at a distance (and really it was more that Eren refused to be pushed away than anything Armin had ever done that kept the brunette close to him.)

He had the diary and the advanced knowledge so he was going to use it like he’d been using it. That was the point of it, right?

He stopped in the bathroom after the lunch bell to smooth take his hair down from the elstatic he’d had it up in all day and smooth it down. Then tug at his t-shirt while wishing he’d worn something a little nicer than white button down number 6 and the same oversized blue cardigan he’d been wearing nearly everyday since Eren had given it to him for his 15th birthday.

And maybe he should have worn his contacts and oh, was he really wishing he looked nicer for _Jean Kirschstein_?

Eren would kill him if he knew.

He shook his head then, with one last pat to his hair, left the bathroom to walk to the classroom he ate lunch in. Jean wasn’t in his homeroom so he ate lunch elsewhere and yet when Armin rounded the corner he was leaning against the wall right to the side of his classroom.

Of course. The diary said he was going to ask him out and this was where Armin would be so of course he was there too and he couldn’t do this. Phone or not he was going to lose it. He could feel the panic welling up inside of him, gripping him in its clutches.

He needed to turn around. He needed-

Jean looked up as he walked closer, pensive expression switching to a grimace trying to hide itself as a smile. He thought he could actually see the other teen steeling himself and he felt the panic receded just a little. Seeing that he wasn’ the only nervous one helped.

“Um. Hi Jean.” He said, cringing at the way his voice went high at the end.

Jean pushed off of the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “Hey. You got a minute?”

Armin chanced a look into the classroom. Most of his classmates were eating and talking, the usual din of noise settling over everything, but Eren wasn’t alone in the back corner waiting for him like he would normally be. Marco was there, leaning over Eren’s shoulder and pointing at something on Eren’s phone while Eren nodded.

“Yeah.” He said. He forced a smile and tried not to fiddle with his phone or look down at it.

Jean nodded then cleared his throat. Then looked down at his feet and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I was thinking that if you were free Saturday maybe we could go out? Maybe? A movie or something?”

Armin nodded jerkily before he even realized he was doing it. “S-sure.”

Wait. Sure? ...he was saying _yes_?

Jean looked just as surprised as he felt but recovered quickly, flashing him another smile. “Okay. Great. Um. We can meet at the train station downtown? Around 12?”

Armin’s tongue felt thick and dry so he nodded again, not wanting to risk trying to talk and messing up at this point. They exchanged numbers quickly; while doing so Armin glanced back into the classroom.

Eren was watching them, eyes narrowed.

“So. Saturday.” Jean said as he handed his phone back to him. He was blushing and looking everywhere but at Armin. It was...cute.

There was a word he’d never thought he’d associate with Jean but it seemed true. He wasn’t hard to look at at the very least.

“Alright. I’ll...okay. Later.” Jean said in a rush then, with a gesture that was between a wave and a nervous hand flap, turned on his heel and walked down the hall towards his own homeroom. Armin watched him go until he vanished through the door then, inhaling, turned to do the same.

That hadn’t been so bad but talking to Eren about it was going to be a disaster.

Eren was still talking to Marco when Armin walked in, face so warm he knew he had to be blushing brightly. Eren frowned then arched an eyebrow at Marco who rolled his eyes before pushing away from Eren’s desk. They passed each other, Marco smiling down at him brightly and Armin managing a weak grin in return.

“So. What did the horse want?” Eren asked once he’d slumped into his seat.

Armin swallowed nervously, hands twisting together. Eren and Jean had been nothing but vaguely tolerable towards each other at best and outright antagonistic at worst since elementary school. Armin didn’t need to look at his phone to know this was going to go badly.

“To ask me out? This weekend?”

Eren’s answering blink was eerily slow. Armin braced himself for anger, for bright sparking rage and harsh words and maybe even for Eren to go running across the hall to Jean’s classroom to start a fight; what he got was a head tilt and another blink of suddenly flat eyes.

“He asked you out on a date?” Eren’s voice had dropped a few octaves but gave away nothing. His best friend, who normally ran so hot and blew up so big that people who afraid to cross him, had gone completely blank.

A chill ran up Armin’s spine. “Y-yeah?”

“And you said?” He looked away, biting his lip. It was enough of an answer because Eren leaned across the gap between their desks to grab his wrist in a surprisingly tight grip. “Did you forget that he used to beat you up and tormented you for years? Remember how you were afraid to come to school because of all the shit he gave you?”

Armin squirmed but didn’t look up from where he was gazing intently at a smudge on his desktop. No, he hadn’t forgotten any of that but it had been a while since all of that that had happened. Jean hadn’t picked on him since

“He broke your arm.”

Right. That.

In a technical sense the stairs had broken Armin’s arm and Jean had just been the one to push him, not realizing that he’d end up tumbling down said stairs, but that was a technicality Eren was unlike to appreciate.

Which was fair, but it was also fair to cut Jean some slack. That had been in freshman year and they were seniors now. Everyone deserved a second chance right? Like he was getting with the Future Diary.

“He came to the hospital and apologized. And then you tried to strangle him in the parking lot so I think we can call it even.” Eren’s grip on his wrist tightened to the point of pain. “Eren, please-”

“Even?” Eren snorted darkly. “I should have done worse. If I had known he was the one hurting you I would have-”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you.” He had never wanted Eren getting into trouble over him, not when they were younger and not now. “It’s just a date, not a marriage proposal. I…the dating pool for me is basically a puddle. I’m 17 and I’ve never been on a date or…been kissed or even held hands with anyone besides you.”

Eren yanked his arm hard enough that he practically slid out of his seat and into Eren’s lap; when had the brunette moved his chair so close anyway? Eren leaned in, breath fanning over Armin’s cheek.

“So you’re desperate enough to go out with Jean of all people?”

Armin was sure he could feel the bones in his wrist being pushed together and shifting under Eren’s grip. His tried to force calm into his voice but he couldn’t stop it from shaking. “Eren, you’re hurting me.”

Eren yanked his hand back like Armin had suddenly burst into flames. “Shit. Ah, fuck. ‘Mini I’m…you know what, it’s fine. It’s great.”  

Eren was on his feet, lunch bag in hand, and storming away from him before Armin could even register the switch in attitude. He, and the rest of the class, leave the classroom and stalk down the hallway. Armin sagged in his seat, eyes flicking around anxiously. With Eren gone everyone was turning questioning gazes on him.

If the ground had opened up to swallow him whole he would have been grateful. He tried to make himself smaller and unassuming as he fished out his phone and thumbed open his diary. He couldn’t make them not stare but maybe if he ignored them they’d stop?

He scrolled ahead to Saturday, biting his lip. He’d never looked more than a few hours ahead before, unsure if the diary would allow such a thing and, honestly, a little afraid of what he might see, but now he had to know.

_Bedroom, 11:13am : Eren helped me pick out an outfit for my date._

He shut the diary, resisting the temptation to see how the date would go (if it said it was going to go badly he didn’t know what the hell he’d do. Back out? Try to change it? Cry? No, better to just go along and see how it went.) and sighed in relief.

Eren was mad now but it looked like everything would be patched up by Saturday.

Everyone was still looking at him, whispering now, but he could deal with that as long as he knew everything would be fine with Eren. Let them whisper and wonder.

Everyone except, he realized when he looked around again, Marco who had earbuds in and was staring intently at his cell phone.

Well at least someone could mind their own business.

\---

Armin was probably going to die alone and a virgin and it was all because of a really creepy looking bunny costume. Or, really, whoever was in the costume but Armin didn’t know what was in it so he had only the costume itself to blame.

The day had actually started out fairly well. He’d woken up to Eren milling around in his kitchen just like he did most Saturdays and had breakfast while his friend teased him about his date. It was like Eren had never been mad about it to begin with at all; he’d been all smiles and jokes and, just like the diary had predicted, happy to lend his opinion for picking an outfit and then walking him to the train station since it was on his way to meeting up Marco in the park to run some laps or something like that.

Armin might had been too keyed up to listen as well as he should have been but, in his defense, he was pretty nervous and Eren’s sports stuff was never that interesting. He went to all of his track and field meets and most of the basketball games but he didn’t actually ‘get’ what any of that stuff was about beyond the basics. Eren didn’t seem to mind his ignorance and had, wisely, given up on trying to enlighten him years ago.

Eren had lingered on the platform, waving as the train pulled away, and Armin had been left with a strange hollow feeling in his stomach. He’d never done anything even remotely social without Eren at his side and now this all alone.

Of course it was alone; he couldn’t very well drag Eren around on dates and things like that but it was still so different to not have his friend sitting at his side on the train, rattling on about something or other.

By the time he’d stepped onto the downtown platform he’d been a wreck. Sweating nervously, the hair he’d carefully brushed out now messy from how often he’d run his hands through it, the hem of the pale yellow and distressingly form fitting pale yellow shirt he’d worn stretched out from him anxiously tugging on it, and eyes burning from the contacts he so rarely wore anywhere.

Jean was waiting at the entrance of the station; his eyebrows went up when they saw each other.

“You look different. Nice.”

Armin flushed. He hadn’t expected that. He should have looked at the phone, desire to just see what happened be damned. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Oh.” Jean’s eyes rounded. “No! I didn’t mean it like that. Just...umm. Let’s say I didn’t say that? And just...the movie is starting soon? If you wanna?”

Armin nodded. They headed down the sidewalk towards the theater, standing close but not too close and not saying anything to each other. It was strange and Armin couldn’t refrain from biting his lip and shooting anxious looks over at a thoughtful looking Jean.

Was he doing this right? Should he say something? Walk closer? Do something?

He looked up again but this time he found bright amber eyes peering down at him. He squawked then looked away, heat rushing up over his face. He expected laughter to follow but Jean stayed silent.

The other boy’s hand brushed his own once, twice, and then again but that time fingers found his own and curled around them.

He barely had to register it when he went flying, something striking him hard from behind and sending him sprawling to the ground. Pain flared in his palms and knees where he landed on them. He heard Jean swearing (loudly and creatively) off to the side; he looked up to find his date also on the ground, but already making his way back to his feet, and glaring down the sidewalk.

When Armin looked he saw the back of what looked like a giant sickly pink colored stuffed rabbit (judging by the large ears flapping along behind it) running away from them. It seemed to, somehow, melt into the crowd and out of sight.

Armin hadn’t been able to imagine anything more ridiculous than being knocked over by a person sized rabbit but, once they were up and Jean had frowned over his scraped up hands and apparently decided hand holding was no longer on the agenda, things just got weirder in the theater.

They were seeing some superhero movie, one of the half dozen that seemed to come out yearly, and the theater was packed. They were a little late after their rabbit incident but managed to find decent enough seats just as the lights were going down. They’d gotten about fifteen minutes in when a huge hulking figure with two long floppy ears lumbered into the row in front of them and plopped down right in front of Armin.

“Are you kidding me?” Jean hissed. Someone nearby shushed him; Jean tossed a glare over his shoulder. Armin was pretty sure the darkness and having no idea which direction the shushing had come from made it ineffective.

The entire screen was blocked from head on. He frowned for a moment then, licking his lips anxiously and hoping that Jean couldn’t hear how hard his heart was beating, leaned close to his date. He was so far into Jean’s space he could feel how warm the other was and nearly forgot he was supposed to be trying to see the movie.

Not that it matter. As if sensing his movements the bunny’s head inclined to the side, effectively blocking both of them. He groaned softly then sat up straight again only to have the bunny one again follow. Jean growled then leaned forward, showing the rabbit’s head.

“Hey man, what the fuck are you doing?”

The rabbit turned and for the first time Armin could see it’s huge sewn on eyes and the wide pasted on near manic grin that took up so much of it’s face. In the darkness there was something sinister about it that made a shiver crawl up his spine.

Jean poked it again, this time where it’s nose would be if it had one. "What’s with-”

“Let’s just go.” Armin whispered as multiple someone’s hissed at them to quiet down and ‘shush’. He saw Jean’s lips press into a thin line then, with a dirty look at the rabbit, he nodded.

They left, got their tickets refunded, and headed for the open air food court. Jean sat at the first free table he saw and fished out his phone, tapping away at it almost violently.

Armin hovered by the table for a moment then, deciding maybe his date needed a second to cooldown, headed for the vending machines in the corner. He’d get them some drinks or something to go with their mostly full bag of popcorn and then they could figure out something else to do.

He put his money in then frowned at the selection. He didn’t know a lot about Jean and wasn’t sure what he would like but a coke was probably safe en-

A large pink hand slammed on the machine next to his head. He jumped, breathing stuttering, then looked up at the stuffed animal looking down at him. He couldn’t help but feel like the thing was actually smiling at him, not just with the pasted on smile but really doing it, as it slammed its hand on the machine over and over. The sound of cans falling into the drawer below made him look away to see that the rabbit hadn’t just been hitting the machine; it had been making a selection.

Green tea. Over and over.

“What-”

The rabbit turned and dashed away, leaving him to stare at it’s back open mouthed. What the hell was going on? He wanted to go after it and demand answers, something he’d normally never do, but then he realized people were staring at him.

He swallowed thickly, scooped up his six cans of tea, and hurried back to Jean.

Jean hated green tea. Armin could tell he was trying to hide it but the way his mouth curved down and his eyebrows pinched closer together gave it away. Armin dropped into the chair across from Jean with a sigh.

Of course he hated green tea.

“How do you feel about lunch?” Jean asked. He’d opened one of the cans but was barely drinking for it. Armin could tell he was just trying to be polite and felt terrible for it. His hand itched to take out his phone to see if the rabbit would follow them to lunch if he agreed but he wasn’t sure how to explain needing to consult his diary before he said yes or no to Jean.

So instead he took a long drink of his own tea while opening up the app underneath the table and, hopefully, well out of sight.  

He needn’t have bothered. The second his eyes darted down Jean shouted a warning. A big pink paw appeared out of nowhere and knocked his drink out of his hand, upending the tea into his lap.

How was something that big and that pink sneaking up on them over and over?

Jean’s chair scraped against the concrete as he jumped to his feet. Armin opened his mouth to say something but Jean was already going, chasing the costumed menace and being swallowed up by the crowd.

Which left Armin, lap cold and soaked through, all alone.

He slammed his phone down on the table then winced at his own action. Nothing happened, not even a twinge, so he turned his attention to mopping the worst of the mess up with the napkins they brought with them from the theater.

It didn’t help much but he couldn’t think of anything worse than standing up as he was now, crotch obviously wet, and trying to head somewhere else.

Maybe he could wrap his sweater around his waist and then buy some new pants?

But what about Jean? What if he came back and Armin was off somewhere? ...was Jean coming back?

He glanced at his phone then, apologizing silently for not consulting it before, slide it open.

_Food Court 12:45pm: I saw someone I knew from school. They didn’t say anything to me_

_Food Court: 2:00pm: I decided to leave the food court and head home._

He rubbed a hand over his face then pinched his nose. His eyes were burning and he wasn’t sure if it was humiliation or anger or frustration or what but he was almost positive he was doing to add ‘cried in public’ to ‘as harassed by a rabbit and lost first date ever to the aforementioned rabbit.’ And wouldn’t that just make his day?

What was even going on here?

Was this some kind of prank? Was Jean messing with him? Invite him out and then have one of his friends terrorize him (and it was him who’d gotten the worst of everything wasn’t it?) then watch him sit and wait from somewhere while laughing?

Had he been wrong to give him the benefit of the doubt? Was Eren right, was he just that desperate that he’d been willing to overlook how awful Jean had been to him? Just so someone would like him?

It seemed so far fetched, did stuff like that even happen in real life, and yet he couldn’t think of anything else it could be. Some random person in a rabbit costume who’d just decided to mess with him?

“Armin?”

He looked up at the sound of Eren’s voice. Eren was standing a few paces away, a confused frown on his face and a can of coke dangling from his fingers. Armin opened his mouth but, to his horror, what came out was a choked sob.

His phone made a staticy whining sound he’d never heard it make before.

\---

Eren took care of him like he always did. New pants were brought from somewhere, Armin escorted into a bathroom with Eren so close in front of him that no one would be able to see his wet jeans, and his face wiped while Eren patiently listened to what had happened.

They went home, Eren vowing to kill Jean, and watched movies on Armin’s couch. Eren made him sit between his legs, leaning back against his chest, with a single blanket draped over them and put a hand over his mouth anytime he tried to argue.

In the end he relented and let Eren fuss over him.

It was later, when the sun was casting orange light over his living room and Eren was petting his hair while flipping through the netflix movie options, that a thought occurred to him.

“What were you doing downtown?”

Eren went stiff for a moment then sighed. “Don’t laugh? I was sort of thinking maybe I’d hang around the movie theater and check up on you. I wasn’t going to do anything, so you know, except make sure everything looked okay.”

Armin tilted his head back to look into Eren’s eyes. “You were following me?”

He was sure he should have been offended by that but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t ended up needing Eren there so how angry could he be, really? It was good that Eren was always there when he needed him, wasn't it? 

“I...guess, yeah.” Eren raised a shoulder in a sheepish shrug. “I’m always looking out for you, no matter what.”

Armin nodded and settled back into his spot, head pillowed on Eren’s chest. Eren hummed and resumed stroking his hair.

\---

Jean didn’t answer his attempts to text on Sunday (to warn him that Eren was going to be on a rampage. He was angry but he didn't want anyone to get hurt.) and on Monday when he chased after Eren to keep him from starting a fight they found that Jean wasn’t present.

He wasn’t there on Tuesday either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *innocent whistle* So! Armin and Jean are hella cute. 
> 
> Too bad about all the psycho boyfriend manipulation.


	3. Ignite Our Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game is afoot.

When the final bell rang on Tuesday, announcing the end of the school day, Armin took his time gathering up his things. He wasn’t in any particular hurry; he was supposed to walk home with Eren like he normally did but the brunette had a meeting with Coach Nanaba so he had some time to kill before Eren made his way to the science building. 

Everyone else was much more eager to get out, practically running each other over in their haste to get out of the classroom. Even his Chemistry teacher was packed up and gone by the time he’d slide his last book into his bag. He fished out his phone as he shouldered the bag and thumbed over his diary; nothing had changed since the last time he’d checked it, of course, but since the disaster of a date with Jean he was trying to utilize the phone even more. 

He didn’t want any repeats of that mess. He knew it was a little paranoid to be checking as obsessively as he was now but the whole experience had been beyond terrible and he was still dealing with the fallout. Jean hadn’t been in school since Friday, still wasn’t answering Armin’s text messages (Eren seemed to think it was because Jean had indeed been messing with him and was laying low to avoid the consequences), and Eren was still furious about what had happened. His friend was alternating between absolutely murderous and being twice as clingy as he normally was, plastered to Armins side in the classes they shared together, managing to walk him to and from the classes they didn’t, had begged him to come to school early and watch his track practice, and he had been sleeping at Armin’s house since Saturday, refusing to let him out of his sight for longer than it took to take a shower.

It was a little stifling but as long as Eren was hanging around him, protecting him from the potential threat of big pink bunnies and cruel high schoolers, he wasn’t storming off to Jean’s house and trying to beat him to a pulp. Armin was angry about the date, though mostly at himself for thinking it could possibly be something other than a prank. He didn’t even have any friends aside from Eren, and the god of space and time, he’d been stupid to think someone would actually be interested in him like that.

Especially not Jean. People didn't change, not in such big ways, and in the end Eren had been right to be skeptical. Eren was usually right when it came to people after all and Armin knew he should have trusted him. But it was what it was and, once he could convince Eren to stop being homicidal, something easier thought than done, it would be completely over with. He didn't know how much longer Jean intended to lay low, nor did he care, but Armin didn't blame him for trying to avoid Eren’s wrath. 

If the situation had been reversed he probably would do the same. 

But it wasn't, so rather than avoiding Eren he was trying to keep any threats of violence contained. He hated when Eren got into fights on his behalf; not just because it resulted in trouble for his friend and made the bullies lash out more but because it made him feel pathetic. 

But then he'd sobbed in the middle of the food court so...

He shook his head, banishing the thoughts, and stood up. That was more than enough self-pity for the day and it wasn't as if it could fix anything. The only thing that actually made things better was the phone diary and he was more dedicated to paying attention to it than ever. 

He glanced down at the, tempted to check again just for the sake of doing so, when a bit of color out of the corner of his made him stop and look. There was a notebook on one of the desks-he was pretty sure it was where Marco had been sitting that day-open to something done in vibrant colors.  

He frowned then headed over to grab it; maybe he could give it to Eren to get back to the other teen tomorrow. They seemed to be friends, or at least Armin had noticed they seemed to be talking to each other more often all of a sudden. Anytime they were in a shared class Eren would go and talk to Marco, leaving Armin to watch and wonder. 

He couldn’t help but remember Eren’s insistence that Marco was all wrong for him and wonder if ‘wrong for him’ was another way of saying ‘right for Eren’. Eren had never said anything about being interested in men which didn’t mean it wasn’t true but it seemed...strange that he would keep something like that quiet from him of all people. It wasn’t as if he’d disapprove; his own sexuality aside Marco was a genuinely good person and he wanted Eren to be happy more than anything. 

His own failure of a romantic life didn’t mean Eren had to be miserable with him, though that was certainly his friend would do in the name of ‘protecting him’

Maybe, he thought as he reached for the book, he would bring it up when he gave this to Eren to give back to Marco. Yes, that was exactly what he would do. Not only would that hopefully nip any ‘self sacrifice’ on Eren’s part in the bud but it would give him an excuse to talk to Marco when he gave him back his notebook.

His hand stopped “What?”

No one answered him, of course, but he was too busy gaping at Marco’s notebook in shock to care that he was talking to himself. Staring up at him from the crisp white pages was a drawing of Mikasa. It wasn't all that great a representation, crude and oddly proportioned, but it was undoubtedly her. Tall and lean, tan skin, black hair and red ribbon, long tail and bat like wings, narrow gray eyes, sharp smile, and the long pink skirt and homespun white shirt he was used to seeing her in. 

His fingers brushed the paper. How could Marco know what she looked like? 

His phone whined, a crackling screeching sound, and vibrated in his hand. He brought it up to look at it. 

_ 3:15 PM, Leaving the School: Someone is following me _

_ 3:40 PM, In the Building: I am cornered by the serial killer and murdered _

**DEAD END**

Armin stopped breathing. Murdered? Dead end? What was this? It had changed: he was supposed to walk down to the front door and meet Eren there at 3:20. He’d seen the words no less than two dozen times throughout the day but this...this was- This future was all wrong. 

How could it have changed like this? He hadn’t done anything!

He was going to be murdered? 

Everything below that point was gone, completely wiped out as if it had never been there before. All of the notes about the dinner he and Eren were going to share, the TV they were supposed to watch, just gone as if they’d never been. 

Dead End and then nothing. 

“You got a Dead End?”

He jumped, hip slamming into the desk and making slide over the floor with a shrill noise that seemed impossibly loud in the stillness of the classroom. He ignored the flare of pain up his side in favor of turning to stare at the course of the question. 

It was Marco, wearing a half smile, and standing in the doorway. 

“Marco! I was...your notebook and-What?” Words were spilling out, failing him completely. The picture of Mikasa, the change in the diary, Dead End, Marco: there were questions and he wanted to ask them all but nothing was coming out right. 

“The future your phone is showing you.” Marco stepped into the room and, brown eyes drifting down to focus on Armin’s phone, walked towards him. Armin took a step back, bumping into the desk again. “It’s a Dead End, isn’t it? You’re going to die.” 

Armin’s mouth dropped open in shock even as he shook his head in denial. How could Marco know about that? 

Marco was closer now, only a few feet away. He’d be able to reach out and grab him if he took a few more steps and something in Armin screamed that he couldn’t let that happen. The taller teen glanced away from the phone to scan his face then nodded at whatever he saw in Armin’s expression. 

“That’s what I thought.” 

Another step and then his hand moved, aiming for Armin’s phone. 

He jerked back, sending the desk toppling with a deafening clatter but managing to stay on his feet, clumsy nature not working against him for a change of pace. Marco looked surprised, attention shifting for a second, and Armin took the opportunity. He ran, darting past Marco and heading for the door. 

“Wait! Armin!” 

He didn’t wait. He ran, heart beating hard against his ribcage and fear choking him. Down the hall and out the nearest exit into the bright sunlight. There were a few other students, stragglers who hadn’t headed to the parking lot or started walking yet, but no sign of Eren and Armin didn’t dare wait. 

Home wasn’t far, if he got there and could lock the door he could just...wait it out. Everything would be fine; he’d tell Eren about what was going on, like he should have done as soon as the future diary showed up on his phone and

Another screeching whine made him try to open up the app as he ran. His hands were shaking and already damp with sweat; it made it hard to get it open but once he did he saw that the words had once again changes.

_ 3:17PM, Going Home: I run away but Marco Bodt keeps following me  _

As if on cue someone called his name. 

_ 3:25PM, Home: The serial killer corners me in the kitchen  _

**DEAD END**

He couldn’t go home. 

He veered right, towards town and away from his neighborhood. His feet pounded on the pavement and all too soon his lungs were burning but he made himself keep putting one heavy foot in front of the other.

He didn’t know where he was going but it couldn’t be home. 

He needed to call Eren. Eren would tell him what to do, like he always did, but he needed to find a place to stop first. To catch his breath. He looked around frantically and his eyes fell on a small gap between two businesses. Could he hide there? 

The phone screeched again.

_ 3: 26 PM, In Town: I escape into a side alley I think- _

The screen rippled, darkened, and then became clear again but the words were different. It had changed again, right in front of his eyes, but he hadn’t done anything? Why would it change without him doing something?

_ 3:26 PM, In Town: Marco Bodt Cuts Me Off  _

He looked away from his phone just as Marco, face a mask of irritation, jogged out from the very alley he’d been considering ducking into. Armin skidded to a stop, eyes widening. How the hell had Marco gotten ahead of him, and into the very spot he’d been about to hide in? 

It was like-like he knew the future.

He turned and ran back the way he’d come, thoughts racing. But how? Wasn’t he the only one with a future diary? But how else could Marco have cut him off so perfectly? Nothing else made sense; he could have gone literally anywhere and yet Marco had not only gotten ahead of him but been in the exact spot he’d needed to be. 

He weaved between people on the sidewalk, bumping a few and nearly sending himself falling to the ground more than once. He could barely see straight, sweat and his hair falling into his eyes but it didn’t matter, he just had to keep going until he could find a safe spot.

Until those two bolded words disappeared from the bottom of his phone. 

He ended up ducking into a building; it had been undergoing construction during the summer but he thought he remembered something about a misuse of funds shutting things down. There were materials, bricks, plywood, and wooden planks were piles up in seemingly random piles and a every step he took over the concrete floor kicked up dust. It was dark, most of the outside light blocked by heavy plastic sheeting along where windows would have been and where the walls weren’t yet built.

There had to be some place in there he could duck into, a door he could shut behind him, a

Elevator! It was there, doors a dull silver in the dimness of the of the building. He dashed towards it, huffing in relief when the doors slide open as soon as he pressed the button. He could go in here, stop it between floors, and then figure something out from there. 

He slipped through the doors as soon as they were wide enough to accommodate him and jumped forward to the row of buttons on the back. He smacked one at random, it wasn’t as if it mattered, then let himself sag against the back wall. It was glass, clean and clear except where his breath was starting to fog it up, allowing him to peer down into the side construction yard opposite where he must have come in. 

Okay. He was safe now, right? He could calm down and figure out what was happening, call Eren and think it through and make a plan and let him know that, actually, being interested in Marco seemed like a terrible idea. 

The doors were closing, he could see them behind him in the glass, and he was nearly safe. He closed his eyes for a second, concentrating on the mechanical whir of the doors, but a noise like gears clicking and grinding made him open them again. The doors were sliding back open and there was someone there, a tall male shadow against the faint light from outside of the elevator.

He was cornered now, no way out, he shouldn’t have come here! His knees were quaking and he wanted to just fall down because what else could he do? He gripped his bag harder, white knuckling the strap, as he imagined the  **DEAD END** that was surely on there. 

And then a sort of calm through the terror. He couldn’t just sit down and die, he couldn’t. His grandfather would be devastated and Eren...Eren.

He couldn’t leave Eren alone. 

He turned, bag swinging towards the shadow’s head.  

Green eyes met his own and a shock went up his spine. He dropped the bag and it fell then skidded across the floor, books and pens and papers spilling out. He barely noticed as he launched himself forward.

“Eren!” He collided with the other teen, arms wrapping around his friend’s neck and face pressing against Eren’s chest as, once again, tears he couldn’t stop spilled. There was a surge of self loathing under everything else but it was hazy and hard to grasp on to. 

The elevator doors shut and the car lurched as it started to move. He was talking, babbling wetly against Eren’s shirt and he wasn’t sure what he was saying or if it made any sense at all but oh god, it was Eren, here for him like he always was. 

“Shhh, it’s fine. I already know.” That damnable screeching noise went off, echoing in the elevator, and- no, not an echo. A second phone. 

“Eren?” 

Hands pushed him back just enough that he was no longer making a mess of Eren’s shirt then one cupped his chin, forcing him to look up into the eyes he knew so well. Eren smiled slightly then dipped down and their lips touched. 

Armin’s hands, resting against Eren’s chest, fisted the worn fabric of his t-shirt and his mind went completely silent. Eren was kissing him. Warm chapped lips were pressing against his own, sliding a little then parting as the sound of Eren sighing cut the air. 

Eren was kissing him. 

It didn’t last long, or maybe it did, and when it was over he was graced with an almost shy smile. 

“I’ve been waiting to do that.” Eren held up his phone, a newer model than Armin’s with more bells and whistles, and showed it was open to a very familiar screen. There, in small font identical to what was in his own diary, were lines and lines of diary entries. His name was there, over and over.

One line in particular jumped out at him. 

_ 3:35: Eren kisses Armin in the elevator of that unfinished building.  _

It was another diary. 

Eren had a future diary and it seemed to have a lot to say about him (a lot), and it had told Eren they were going to kiss and he’d been waiting for it? Looking forward to it? 

Eren wanted to kiss him?

Eren’s small smile dropped abruptly. He pressed past Armin to look through the glass. “He’s down there.” 

“Who? Marco?” He asked even as he followed Eren’s gaze. There was someone down in the yard; maybe a man but it was impossible to really tell. They were wearing a wide brimmed hat, a gray raincoat that was long enough to burst the ground and, when they tilted their head back to look up towards them, a blank black mask hid their face. 

It was very...obvious. 

“The serial killer. The third diary user.” Eren pressed a hand against the glass. Then, as if only just hearing him, turned and cocked an eyebrow in question. “Marco?” 

Armin blushed in spite of himself; he didn’t have to say it like it was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. “He was following me! ...it was weird.” 

Eren blinked then looked down at his phone, tilting it so Armin could look at it again. “I saw Third was going to kill you with my diary. At 3:40 you die on the 14th floor of this building.” 

The entry was there, just under the one about them kissing. There were others, all at five minute intervals, and they were all about him. Every single one.

_ 3:15: Armin is afraid. _

_ 3:20: Armin is running down Maria Road, Third is following him. _

_ 3:25: Armin is going to go down the alley between the bookstore and the bagel place. _

_ 3:30: Armin is still running away, Third is getting closer. I have to do something now. _

He looked up at Eren, a tingle of alarm creeping up his neck. “Are these always about me?” 

“Of course. It’s the Armin diary.” Color crept over Eren’s cheeks. “It tells me your future in five minute gaps.” 

His mouth dropped open. Every five minutes? If his diary was just doing what he’d already been doing, making observations about the world around him, did that mean Eren’s was doing what he’d already been doing? Had Eren been writing about him every five minutes?

That was...crazy. 

“And now I’m going to use my diary to make sure you survive the game.” 

“The game?” 

Eren nodded as he reached out to touch the ‘20’ button. “All of the diary users are trying to kill each other, like Third is no. You were too obvious with how you were using your diary and he must have figured you out.”

Too obvious? Cheating on a few tests and avoiding bullies was too obvious? And other diary users? Killing each other? 

“Don’t worry Armin.” Eren smiled at him. “Your future is safe in my hands.” 

Why did he find that so frightening? 

\---

Of all the potential uses of video chat programs being able to hide on a roof, crouched behind a massive air conditioning unit with bricks and bags of unmixed concrete for company, and still be able to see what was going on elsewhere on the roof hadn’t been one he’d ever considered. Eren had diverted them from the fourteenth floor up to the roof, set up a video call, and then sent him to hide while he ‘handled it.’ 

He couldn’t see Eren on his screen but he could see the roof door and some of the roof itself but that was it. Eren had propped his phone up against something and then run off to, presumably, wait for ‘Third’.

He couldn’t believe Eren was about to take on a murderer, an actual serial killer, for him. Or maybe he could believe it but this was so much more than fighting some bullies. Eren could get hurt. He could die, for him, while he was hiding like a coward.

A banging sound jarred him from his thoughts. On his small screen he could see the door had flown open and the masked man he’d seen in the elevator was striding out onto the roof, a wicked looking knife gleaming under the light of the sun. Armin held his breath and willed himself to be perfectly still. 

The man looked to the right and then the left and then repeated the gesture. Looking for him?

Armin’s heart was beating so loud he half expected the man to hear it and come for him. Instead Third reached into his coat and pulled out a phone, just like Eren had said he would. 

There was a flash of color and then the man was on the ground, bowled over by Eren. Armin watched, grip tightening on his phone, as the two figures rolled together, kicking and punching. It seemed like an equal match, neither gaining an upper hand, and Armin swallowed. 

What if Eren was killed? What was he supposed to do then?

Third swung at Eren but the brunette smacked his hand away, knocking his phone free. It fell to the ground, bounced and tumbled across the gravel to come to a stop somewhere out of the scope of the Eren’s phone could see. 

But it had looked like it was heading in his direction. 

On his phone screen Eren was up, shoving the man away and trying to scramble in the direction the phone had gone towards. He made it maybe two steps before he was pulled back to the ground, the man’s elbow catching him in the side of the head on the way down. He heard Eren’s shout in stereo and his stomach tightened painfully when the man fell over his friend, hands finding their way around Eren’s neck. 

Eren’s arms flailed but the man just leaned down, seemingly putting more weight into his arms.

He couldn’t just sit here and watch this. 

He couldn’t let Eren die protecting him. 

Armin rounded the unit he’d been leaning against. He had no idea what he was going to do but he knew he had to do something. Eren had stopped trying to hit the man and was, instead, trying to pry the fingers around his neck away. Armin took a step forward.

His foot landed on something hard; a plasticy crunch made him look down. The man’s phone was under his foot.

_ “Should your diary be destroyed your future will end as well.” _

The sound of Eren choking, wet and throaty and pained, was like physical pain. 

He brought his foot up then slammed it down as hard as he could; he could feel the phone cracking and shattering under his shoe. 

Someone shouted. 

The man on top of Eren fell to the side, body twisting and convulsing. Spider web like lines lines, appeared on his body; it was as if a picture had been brought up on a broken cellphone screen. The man fell to his knees, shaking, as limbs twisted and jerked and stretched then folded in. 

In the end the man seemed to circle himself, becoming pinprick small in the center and reminding Armin of water circling a drain, and was sucked away into nothingness with a rush of wind and smoke. 

The last thing Armin saw were dark eyes wide with pain. 

He swayed on his feet, suddenly dizzy, but a raspy cough reminded him that he wasn’t alone and sent him running over to Eren. Relief flooded him as he dropped to his knees and gripped Eren’s arms to help him up. 

Eren was alive. Bruised around his neck, sporting a bloody nose, and his eyes were bloodshot but he was breathing, alive and warm and not some strange convulsing twisted- 

Once they were both standing again Armin couldn’t stop himself from touching him, hands fluttering over his neck then running over his body and arms.  

“I’m fine.” Eren insisted, laughing weakly. “We’re fine.” 

They were fine. They were fine because he’d killed someone. He’d stepped on that man’s phone, knowing and-

“I killed him.” 

“I saw it. You did good.” Eren squeezed his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here okay? ...You hungry? I’m hungry,” 

Eren didn’t wait for a response before taking him by the hand, lacing their fingers together, and dragging him to the door. He talked, voice low and rough, about what he’d planned to to cook once they got home. Armin looked back over his shoulder at the broken phone, a splintered screen and bits of white plastic that had come free. 

All that was left of the man he’d just killed. 

Their phones screeched in tandem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...next chapter I promise we’ll find out what happened to Jean. Honest. And...yeah. The thing I teased on my tumblr ended up not being in this chapter. Cause it would have been another 3-4 pages just to get there.


	4. Take All These Strings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armin suspects puppetry and is just having a real shit day. Jean is not a dude in distress. Or maybe he is. He feels distressed.

Armin had never been so hapy to see his house, to see his kitchen and the kitchen table, in all his life. He all but threw himself into one of the chairs and let his head fall onto the table. He needed to pull together the frayed bits of his brain, to understand what was going on. He’d followed Eren home like he was a puppet and the other teen was the one jerking his strings, unable to speak or pull away or do anything except follow. What else could he do? 

Someone had just tried to kill him and then he’d killed them instead. Shattered their phone, watched their body shatter and then get swept away like they had never been there at all. A person, an actual living person, wiped out just like that because of him? 

He was a murderer and, instead of being taken in by the cops like what was supposed to happen, he was sitting at his kitchen table listening to Eren take things down from the cupboards and prattle on about fried chicken. 

The thought of eating made him want to heave. Eren’s voice was like a pick to the brain, stabbing a little deeper with each passing second.

How could he be so calm? How could he just not care and jump back into the day like...like it was nothing? Everything was going crazy: Eren had a future diary, some killer had one, Marco knew about them and had chased him for some reason, Eren had  **kissed** him and now they were just going to make dinner like it was a normal day?

His fingers scraped over the tabletop, dug trails into the soft wood.

He couldn’t take this, he couldn’t

“You don’t look so good.” Mikasa said, sounding concerned. He looked up through his hair then sat up fully when he realized he was in the domed room. Mikasa was sitting cross legged on the table, watching him with worried eyes and Hanji-

Hanji!

He leapt up, chair falling to the floor but somehow not making a sound, and stared up at the god. “What’s going on? How are there other diary users? Is that man dead? How-” 

“Calm down.” Hanji said, skull-like face changing to support an almost manic grin. Hanji’s glasses caught the light and gleamed. “I already explained this to you, it’s all part of my latest game. And you are our first victor, First.” 

A bone white arm swept forward in a grand gesture and the world changed. The dome fell away with a crackle of static and a clicking of gears, and there was only sky. Bright joyful blue, like the nicest summer day he’d ever seen, and fluffy white clouds stretched on and on around them in all directions. It was dizzying and strange and endless, like there was no real horizon and he had to look away because the wrongness made his stomach lurch. 

He wasn’t alone. People, or shadows or maybe shadows clinging to people, had appeared and were standing around the clock face, a person at each number except three. Instead of a person there were words, suspended in the air and trembling slightly as the wind blew, in dark red print:  **DEAD END.**

The person at five, tall and broad, hummed thoughtfully. “So this is the famous First.” 

“Must be.” A woman, standing close by a four, said as her head swiveled towards him. It was unnerving to watch because she was nothing but a human shaped purplish shadow, no mouth or eyes or features, but a voice was coming from her. “I heard the news. How awful to have to kill someone, even that serial killer.”

They knew. How could they know? 

What were they going to do to him?

Armin looked around the clock, took in all the shadows. Were these the other diary users? So many of them with diaries just like his, able to see the future? For what? A game? What kind of game? 

His eyes stopped on the person next to him and, even though he could only see the shadowy form was taller than him, thicker built than him but not that big overall, had messy hair on the longer side, he knew. It hit him like an electric shock, made him rear back. 

It was Eren. He didn’t know how he know but he knew. 

“Now that everyone is here I shall give a proper explanation of this Survival Game.” Hanji proclaimed from their spot in the center of the circle. The god stood, body clicking and whirring as skelton like limbs moved, and held out a hand. “The devices you posses are known as Future Diaries. Originally they were ordinary diaries but time has been distorted so you may read entries written up to 90 days in the future.” 

Everyone seemed to move as one-he thought again of puppets being yanked about-and withdrew items to look as as Hanji spoke. Armin was sure they’d all taken out their diaries, were flipping through the entries just as eagerly as he had once done. He hesitated to do it now even though he felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket. 

His fingers twitched and he saw the man, shattered and cracked, in his mind’s eye. 

“May I interrupt?” The person at eleven asked, raising their hand like a child asking a question in school might.  

Hanji glanced at them. “What is it Eleventh?” 

“I have seen this diary rewrite itself multiple times. How do you explain this?” 

“The future will change according to the keepers actions.” Hanji sounded almost bored, like they were being forced to explain the obvious. A hand rose up an image appeared: a stick figure walking along an arrow. “To make this simple, imagine the diary tells you that an accident in the future will injure you.” 

The stick figure stopped walking and collapsed into a heap. Armin bit his lip, thought about unnaturally twisting limbs, and tasted copper on his tongue. The stick figure got back up, now missing an arm, and continued to walk along the arrow. 

“Naturally you take actions to avoid this.” The stick figure snapped back to the start of the arrow, whole again, and started walking but, at the point where it had collapsed, it veered to the right and started a new arrow. This new arrow looped around and rejoined the first after a few paces but now the stick figure kept all of its limbs. “By avoid the foretold even you have altered the future in which you were injured, which will alter the events recorded in the diary. Everything that would have happened if you were injured is then also altered because that is no longer the case. I believe you humans call this a ‘butterfly effect’.”

“Wait!” Even knowing the person standing on two was Eren he still jumped at hearing that familiar voice next to him. He glanced to the side just in time to see Eren was ‘looking’ at him, trying to communicate something Armin didn’t understand. “I didn’t do anything but my entries still changed. I was sitting around and the future changed to say that Third was going to kill First.” 

There was some murmuring around them, the shadows turning to whisper among those closest to them, but silence returned quickly when Hanji laughed, a high pitched sound that seemed to have them all covering their ears. As quickly as it started it was over and they were moving their hand again. 

“You aren’t the only one who can change your future.” Hanji said and now there was excitement to their voice and the click-clack of the gears on the clock got louder. “That is what makes this a survival game you see? Once there is confirmation that one diary keeper will another a death sentence will be passed and a warning will be issued.”

“Dead End.” This came from Twelve on Armin’s other side, a soft almost reverent whisper that sent a chill up his spine.  

Hanji nodded, skeleton grin becoming that much larger. The stick figure above them was suddenly pounced upon by another figure. The first hit the ground and, in what might have been a comical display any other time, a red puddle appeared beneath it. 

“Killing each other is your objective, until only one remains. If you’re smart enough you’ll be able to use your Dead End warning to turn the tables.” 

The stick figures snapped back. The first began to walk along the arrow again but this time when they were jumped at they moved to the side, allowing the second figure to hit the ground and for their empty circle of a head to tilt dangerously to the side, as if to show it’s neck had been broken. 

Armin watched it play out, mouth dropping open. This couldn’t be real, could it? There was no way he and a bunch of complete strangers were going to try and actually kill each other, right? That was insane. Beyond insane. 

Six, a figure that was kneeling over her number and seemed to be almost swallowed up in miles of what could only be fabric, held up her hand. “So we’re to kill each other even though we don’t know who each other are or what we all look like?” 

Hanji nodded. “You must use the information from your diary to uncover their identities. It wouldn’t be much of a game if you already knew all the answers, would it?” 

“So the first step,” Five said as they crossed their arms over their chest. “Is finding out who everyone else is.” 

“Correct.” Hanji seemed to swell up, to grow past their already considerable size in order to lean over all of them at once, occupying all of the space above the clock face. Armin’s head throbbed. “Identify your foes and attempt to trigger Dead Ends. If you get a Dead End do what you must to avoid your death. Survive to the end. That is how this game is played.” 

The god moved, shrank and surged forward until they were in front of Armin, practically breathing the same air as him. “First. You were meant to die today but you were able to switch things around and instead it was Third who died.” 

Hanji turned and, flowing as if made of smoke, leapt back into their throne. “That is something of a miracle, isn’t it? First may well be the one to kill everyone else and survive. I suspect, at least, that you have the best chance.” 

Armin’s knees shook as he felt, actually felt, all attention turn to him. 

No. Not him. It wasn’t...he didn’t. It wasn’t because of him. It wasn’t his plan or his doing, he’d barely done anything at all except hide. 

He looked at Eren who was still staring ahead at Hanji, shadowy form giving away nothing. 

“There cannot be a game without a prize.” The god proclaimed and they were laughing again. “So here it is. The winner, the last one standing, will succeed me as the god who rules time and space. Life or death. There are twelve-”

“Eleven!” Eren shouted, nodding towards the spot Third should have occupied. 

Hanji was silent a moment, almost as if hesitating, then they were giggling again. “Kill before you are killed and win the throne of God.” 

“And that means the greatest obstacle,” One of the shadowed figures, Nine who stood tall, hands fisted at his waist and what looked like a cape of all things floating behind him, stated before his image crackled and faded like a TV abruptly unplugged.

Another of the shadows, this one short and slight and standing at the Seven, picked up the thought like it had been his all along. “Is First.” 

Armin gasped, the words falling over him like rocks, and wasn’t that unfortunate imagery. “What? I-I’m not-”

Six nodded. “That’s right. He’s already ahead of the game.” 

Armin could only watch, throat too tight with sudden stomach churning fear to let out the frantic explanation that what had happened with 3 hadn’t been his doing, as the others made noises of agreement, all of their shadowed gazes turning to face him. 

“Hey, don’ worry, First.” Twelve said, rocking back on his heels. “Ah’ll help protect ya. Y'all will see, First won't be as easy to kill as ya think.”

Armin wasn’t sure how seriously to take it because there was laughter in those words and Twelve was gone almost immediately after saying them. 

It was like something out a nightmare; human shaped shadows with voids for eyes and mouths, completely focused on him as they vanished from their spots on the great clock one by one but instead of feeling better when he could no longer see them, staring at him like an animal watches prey, he felt worse. 

It was like he could feel the cool calculation in the eyes he couldn't see, could just imagine the wheels in their brains turning as they imagined ways to track him down and take him out of the game.

These people were going to kill him. It was a game but it wasn’t a game, not really. He’s spent all this time playing around with the phone, using it to cheat on his tests and avoid bullies, treating it like a great thing but it was a death sentence. 

They were going to hunt him down like he was some kind of animal and then they were going to to do their best to kill him without so much as a twinge of guilt and he wouldn't be able to to do anything. He didn’t know how to protect himself and there was no way he’d be able to kill other people deliberately. The very idea made him want to throw up. 

He was going to die. 

The knowledge crashed down on him, impossible to stand up under and he knees gave out. His lungs were being squeezed painfully tight; he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stand, couldn’t obey the part of his brain screaming at him to get up and run away, to get away from what was hanging. His body was numb and tingling, everything just on the edge of pain, and the world was going dark around the edges and it hurt, everything hurt.

“Armin!” Hands gripped his shoulders hard; Eren’s voice echoed in his ears as if it was coming from the other end of of a long tunnel. 

He could feel the weight of those black hole like eyes on him, crushing him down into the ground and forcing whatever air was left in him out. His throat burned, lungs burned, head pounded, his-

“Armin!” The grip on his shoulders tightened. “Breathe! You need to breathe.”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything, he’d never been able to, that was why Eren had to take care of him. Eren-

Lips touched his; first feather light then firmer. He inhaled sharply in surprise, eyes widening, and lips slide over his own, slotted against them. Eren’s eyes were shut tight and his brows were furrowed like he was thinking hard but his lips stayed soft against Armin’s. It was warm and slow and he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing because no one had ever kissed him before but now Eren was doing it again. 

Eren’s teeth touched his bottom lip, tugged it between and bit down gently before slowly pulling back. Blue green eyes blinked open and locked on Armin’s. The hand on his chin moved up to his cheeks, thumb moving to swipe away tears he hadn’t even realized he’d shed. 

He was back in his house, sitting on the floor of his kitchen, the chair he’d been in tipped over on it’s side, and Eren was kneeling in front of him, so close that they were breathing the same air. Even a slightly twitch forward by either of them would bring their mouths back together. He wanted to shrink back but Eren was still holding his shoulder tightly. 

“Listen to me Armin, I’m going to keep you safe.” Eren said as he brushed more tears away. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Armin shook his head. This wasn’t dealing with some bullies in school, this was people with knowledge of the future and the intention of killing him- both of them, really. “You can’t-”

“I’ll kill them all.” Eren said it like it was nothing, like he would talk about homework or the weather, but his eyes were wide and blank of any emotion except cold determination. An icy feeling dropped into Armin’s stomach. “None of them will even get close to you, I won’t let them. You’re all I have now and I’m not going to lose you.”

Armin’s heart stuttered then clenched painfully at the sad tilt to the brunette’s mouth, thoughts of Mrs. Jaeger flickering through his mind. “Eren we can’t kill-”

“I can.” Lips brushed over his own, a whisper of contact. “I love you.” 

Armin knew he was sitting on the floor and that it was firm and solid underneath him but he felt like he was falling, thoughts silenced under the enormity of Eren’s words. He loved Eren, he was his best friend and so more than that as well but he knew that wasn’t how the brunette meant it and he didn’t...he’d never even thought like that. 

He wasn’t in love with Eren. 

“And I’m going to take care of you like I always do.” Eren promised. “You don’t need to do anything but trust me.” 

Eren was going to protect him? 

Of course he was, that was what he always did. He would shield him from the others and do all the hard stuff that Armin couldn’t. He was going to  _ kill  _ for him.

He didn’t need to do anything.

Armin’s stomach flipped and something bitter and thick rose up in his throat. “I’m going to be sick.” 

\---

The phone felt impossibly heavy.

The strange other world didn’t so much fade away as flicker a few times like a light not screwed in all the way and when the flickering stopped he was back in the dimly lit basement room he’d been in for the past...however many days. It was impossible to keep anything resembling an accurate record of time in the windowless room, lacking even the sun to tell the changing of days by. 

It was just him, a cot, a sink, a toilet, stairs that lead to a locked door, and a single bare light bulb casting light so weak it couldn't banish rather shadows from the corners of the room. Food seemed to just appear at the bottom of the stairs whenever he woke up and there was occasionally a feeling like he was being watched but he never actually saw anyone.

He knew whoever it was was some kind of weirdo. Aside from dressing as a giant pink bunny and leading him on some wild chase only to pounce on him and jab a needle full of god only knew what into his neck then carrying him off to some basement, which was all pretty freaky, they insisted on giving him the absolute most adorable meals he’d ever seen. Vegetables and fruits carefully sculpted into various shapes, sandwiches and meat cut up to resemble cat faces, eggs and pancakes cooked into hearts and flowers and clouds.

However nervous he’d been upon realizing he’d been snatched and locked up only got increasingly worse with each cute little meal. 

It was weird and he needed to get the hell out before whoever it was feeding him decided they were tired of just watching and sending him strawberries cut up to look like bees. 

He looked down at his hand and the phone held tight in his fingers. It looked like his phone, same brand, same style, and the same color but it couldn't actually be  _ his _ phone. 

His phone had been snatched by that crazed rabbit and returned to him in pieces which, yep, were still in a lonely pile in the corner of the room where he'd shoved them. 

Which begged the questions: where had this new phone come from, how, and why? From the freaky dream he'd just had? Future Diaries and survival games and a mechanical god promising godhood to whoever lived? 

He wanted to shake it off, label it as just some weird dream, but dismissing it didn't sit right. After all he'd been drugged and kidnapped by someone in a rabbit costume and if that call for a little suspension of disbelief he didn't know what did. 

And the phone certainly felt real. 

And if it was real that meant he could use it. Not where he was, since it was showing him he had no reception but maybe…

The stairs?

Jean knew it would be a few days, at least, before his mother started to worry about him. She’d been busy since his father had left them with nothing but a ton of debt and no way to get a hold of him, working long hours at the hospital and picking up extra shifts whenever she could. She trusted him to look after himself and the house and he did his best; the least he could do was take a few things off her list of stuff to worry about.

They talked mostly through voicemail and text messages these days but it wasn’t all the unusual for them to go a while in between communication. 

He was still hoping Armin would report him missing but he wasn’t sure how good his odds of that were. Would Armin be worried that he’d run of like that or just chalk it up to him still being an asshole? Jean couldn’t really blame him if that was what he thought; he'd been horrible for a few years and, even if one looked past all this teasing and name calling, there was still the ‘Stairs Incident’. 

Up until he'd pushed Armin he'd never actually put his hands on another person but thing had been...out of control and he'd reacted. He'd been trying to deal with his preference for boys (courtesy of some good old fashioned ‘hey my best friend is hot. Also that kid I've been teasing for years? Kind of cute and maybe all of this has been nothing but pigtail pulling’ realizations) and his parents had decided to get divorced, seemingly out of nowhere. 

Nothing had been going right and he'd taken it out on Armin, shoving him for no real reason. Of course when the blond had gone tumbling down the stairs and stopped on the landing with his arm bent at an impossible angle all of the other shit had seemed less important. 

It was maybe a little bit funny that here he was, years later, trapped in a fucking basement with no one looking for him because he'd been a douchebag in middle school.

Some people, namely Eren Jaeger, would probably say he had this coming. 

Eren would probably be all too happy if he just sat in this room forever, never to be seen again. Sadly he was pretty fucking out of luck with that. Assuming he could get reception.

He climbed the stairs as quietly as he could then pressed his ear to the door. He heard something, a TV maybe, but no voices or sounds of someone moving. This wasn't the first time he'd come up this far; when he'd first woken up, sour mouthed, dizzy, and scared out of his mind, he'd spent what felt like hours banging in the door to no avail. 

But, as he held the phone up to his face and saw two small bars in the corner, he figured this might go a little different. 

He just had to-

The phone buzzed, heart stoppingly loud, and an app opened up. 

_ Nine is coming for me. Twelve will try to stop them. A fight will break out. The phone will be damaged. _

**Dead End**

Jean stared at the words blankly, unable to make heads or tails of what the hell was supposed to mean except: Dead End. The thing from his dream, the one claiming to be a god, had spoken about Dead Ends and what they meant. 

There was a creak from somewhere, like someone stepping on a loose floorboard. The light coming from under the door was suddenly blocked out.

Oh fuck. 

A click and then to knob was turning so slowly Jean wondered frantically if the world had decided to go into slow motion around him. He didn’t feel like he was in slow motion though, he felt like he was speeding up, heart beating faster, breathing harder, brain racing. 

He was sure of exactly two things: 1. Whoever was on the other side of the door was going to do something that ended up with him dead. 2. He really really didn’t want to be dead. 

The door opened; the world became bright light and a huge dark silhouette in the middle of it. He stopped breathing, stopped thinking, for a moment. He dimly heard a noise of surprise but it didn’t register as anything important. He surged forward, hands gripping onto something, pivoted and pushed. 

The person, the body, went forward and seemed to just...hang in the air a moment, as if floating or stuck in time, and then it was falling, arms pinwheeling almost comically, crashing down the stairs with heavy thuds and Jean almost followed, off balance in just about every way possible-this was familiar and oh shit what had he just done- but he was grabbed, yanked backwards.

He fell but not down the stairs. Instead he pitched backwards, colliding with someone else, and ended up in a heap just outside of the doorway. He didn’t move, too startled to even begin to care that he was effectively sitting on someone or that his phone had dropped.

His heart was so loud, painfully so, banging in his ears. He couldn’t see down the stairs from his position on the floor, probably didn’t want to. 

He’d just shoved someone down a flight of stairs (again). 

Had he just killed someone? 

“Jean?”

That cut through his shocked haze. He twisted around to look at the body under him. Brown eyes, dark hair, freckles over olive skin, brows drawn up in confusion. 

“Marco?” 

Someone groaned, a wet pained sound, followed by the sound of something being dragged and a heavy thump. They both looked towards the open doorway then, without a word, hopped to their feet. Jean looked around, jumping as another loud thud came from down the stairs, then zeroed in on another door just a few feet away, sitting wide open. He was in what looked like it might have been a kitchen, though it was empty of just about everything except a sink and some ugly yellowing tile that was peeling up in places, and the door lead into a grassy area. He turned, saw that Marco had stooped down to pick up the phone that wasn’t his phone but was basically his now, and reached for the other teen. 

Another thud and he could just imagine that whoever it was down there, probably the kidnapping psycho in the bunny costume, was getting closer, dragging themselves up step by step with revenge on their minds.

It was like something out of a horror movie. Which meant, according to Jean’s extensive horror movie research, that this was the part where he went over to the stairs to investigate and got himself dragged down into a shadowy abyss and viciously murdered. 

He ran for the door, dragging an unresisting Marco after him, and into the night. They ran through grass and weeds that were near waist high, out past a barely standing picket fence, Jean suddenly very aware that he wasn’t wearing any shoes. He’d known that, had noticed his shoes were gone the first time he’d woken up and it had sort of seemed less important with the whole escape thing but now each step brought fresh pain as something new dug into the soft underside of his feet. He ground his teeth together, ignored it as long as he could as they ran blindly down sidewalks, across roads and it was dark and nothing around him looked recognizable but he didn’t want to slow down.

He felt like he could feel eyes, the same eyes that had been watching him in the basement, on him now. Was sure that his captor had to be following them, breathing down their necks, desperate to get him back. 

He was forced to stop, in the end, by Marco. The older teen stopped moving abruptly and Jean jerked to a stop, unable to move the brunette any further. He turned, lungs and eyes burning, ready to yell at Marco to start moving. Didn’t he understand what was happening? That someone had been keeping him hostage, that he’d shoved someone down a flight of stairs, that they were in danger, they couldn’t stop here what if

Marco wasn’t looking at him. The brunette’s eyes were trained on the ground and when Jean looked down as well, gaze drawn by how serious Marco looked. It was dark all around them but Marco had stopped under a street lamp which allowed Jean to see the barely there impression of feet in red. They went back the way they’d come, vanished down the dark sidewalk. 

He looked at his feet next, faintly surprised to see the bottoms had accumulated a layer of red tinted dirt and that, as they stood still, blood was starting to form thin trails creeping away from his feet. 

Which, actually, stung when he was focused on them. 

And he was very tired. 

On his own he probably would have collapsed right then and there on the sidewalk, the fear and adrenaline suddenly emptying out of him but Marco was there to hold him up and then help ease him onto the ground. Jean buried his face in his hands, shaking his head as Marco switched his attention to his backpack and began rummaging around. 

“We can’t stay here. Someone is...he’s going to keep coming. We have to go.” He didn’t feel like going. He felt like his body weighed twice what it should and was getting heavier, turning to lead or stone or maybe becoming part of the sidewalk. 

He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get up. 

“I don’t think anyone is following us.” Marco said calmly. “And I don’t think you know where you’re going. Just running around in a weird neighborhood at night is dangerous.” 

Jean hated how reasonable his best friend was. So calm, so collected, always so together when Jean was essentially falling apart; he sort of wanted to punch him in the face but of course he would never do that. 

Instead he glared.

“Someone was keeping me locked up in a fucking basement.” Marco went still, dark eyes darting up to stare at him through thick lashes. “So you’ll have to excuse me if-wait. What were you doing there?”

Marco blinked slowly. “Looking for you. It’s been over three days.” 

Jean started to nod, willing to accept that. Of course Marco would be looking, he should have known that. Why hadn’t he thought of that? His mother wouldn’t know to and of course Armin wouldn’t but Marco? Marco was a big big mother hen, knew more about Jean’s schedule than Jean did sometimes, so of course-

No. 

No, that didn’t make sense. 

They were...he didn’t even know where, but it wasn’t his neighborhood or Marco’s or near the Bodt family restaurant, there was no reason for Marco to be wherever it was they were now. 

No way he could had found him in one run down house in the middle of who the fuck knew where on a whim just as he was about to be caught trying to escape. 

His head was starting to hurt, throbbing pain in his temple, but he forced himself to ignore it. People, namely Marco, liked to tell him he was good at reading people and putting things together. He wasn’t sure if it was true or not, or if more people were just easy to read, but he knew this wasn’t right. 

Marco was watching him, usually open face pinched and unreadable, and that wasn’t right either. 

His phone, still in Marco’s hand, chimed. He watched Marco’s lips thin out and his fingers twitch around it. He swallowed. 

“Can I have my phone?” 

Marco looked down at it, appearing almost surprised at the sight of it, then held it out to him. Jean got his fingers on, started to pull it free of his friend’s grip

_ Nine is coming for me. _

The shadow in the doorway.

_ Twelve will try to stop them _

If Jean hadn’t known they were going to be there, hadn’t reacted and taken care of himself, Marco would have come in right after and

“Twelve.” It slipped out before the thought was even fully realized but he knew it was right. 

There was another chime but it wasn’t from his phone. 

“What?” Marco’s eyes widened as his grip on the phone tightened. 

Jean’s heart skipped a beat. 

The survival game. The other diary holders, all identified by their place on the clock. Twelve had been...fuck, it was hard to remember, he’d been so focused on what was being said and on being completely freaked out but-no, he had to think. 

Twelve. 

Tall. Broad. Male. Stood loosely, arms at his side, hands shoved into pockets, hip cocked to the left. Deeper voice, southern twang, drew out some words, added vowels that shouldn’t have been there.

He knew that body, that posture. 

Knew that voice, or had before the years had softened the accent until it was unrecognizable from how everyone else in their city sounded. 

He should have known right away. 

How had he not know?

“You’re Twelve. Your diary told you how to find me.”

That made sense. A terrible but undeniable kind of sense.

Marco’s breath left him a great whoosh then, smiling ruefully, he let go of the phone. Jean yanked it towards him, cradled it against his chest like it was...well, like it was a lifeline, and stared at the man he called his best friend. Who was watching him right back, lips still quirked up into a faint smile.

Survival Game

Take each other out. 

Only one winner.

Marco reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his own phone. He seemed to consider it for a moment then, nodding once, held it out to Jean. 

Who stared at it like he’d never seen it before. What the fuck?

Marco huffed and grabbed his free hand to slap the phone into his palm hard enough to sting his skin. 

“What the fuck?” 

Marco shrugged. “I’m not going to fight you and, honestly, you’re probably the only person I’d trust to become a god anyway.” Well that was just dumb. Jean was fairly confident he’d be a terrible god. “So if you need to kill me do it. I’m going going to stop you.” 

Jean forgot how to breathe. Was….was Marco seriously putting his life, his actual literal life if that dream was to be believed and at this point how could it not be believed, in his hands? 

Just like that? 

“Holy shit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Numbers have been swapped so, for example, the Escape Diary isn't necessarily Ninth anymore. Because that would be too easy to figure out. :P 
> 
> Also: Look at all these things that don't make sense (yet)!
> 
> Next Chapter: Marco and Jean do dinner. Turns out maybe they were being followed? Opps?


	5. I Don't Wanna Be the Reason Why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things seem to be looking up. And then they don't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special warnings for blood and death and some mild gore. Also Jean's feelings.

 

Bodt’s restaurant, the place Marco’s parents owned, was at times more home than Jean’s actual home was. It was always warm, inviting, full of people and chatter, and, most importantly, he always felt like he was welcome. In comparison the apartment he and mother lived in was cold and lonely; just some walls, a TV, a pile of takeout menus, and a chronically empty refrigerator. 

Marco’s house was the same, warm and bright and always open to him. He had his own mug and futon for when he slept over at this point. When his parents had been going through the divorce, and he’d been going a little off the rails, Marco and his family had been there, door open and a place ready for him whenever he needed it. 

He’d needed it a lot then. 

He needed it now. His whole life had been upended, again. He was half convinced he was about to wake up back in that basement, kept touching things to be sure they were real, kept looking around the small room as if expecting someone to jump out at him, kept closing his eyes and seeing the door, the sliver of light, the slow way it opened, feeling panic twist in his gut. 

Jean was fairly certain he was going to have a rough time sleeping. 

“And here you two are.” Mrs. Bodt, a heavier set woman who’s russet brown hair was starting to gray at the temples and who always seemed to be smiling, said as she hustled over to them carefully balancing a tray in one hand. 

Jean’s stomach grumbled, something that made the woman smile so widely the skin around her eyes crinkled, as two steaming bowls were set on the small table between them. Two glasses followed it and, finally a first aid kit with what looked like a fresh pair of socks draped over the handle.

“I think you have an old pair of sneakers in the supply closet but I didn’t get a chance to check.” She said once everything was on the table. 

“That’s fine mom.” Marco shook his head slightly. “I can look. I know the front is busy, don’t worry about us.” 

“Tsk.” She sniffed then ruffled Marco’s hair. Marco’s lips pressed together and his eyes slide over to Jean in fond exasperation, as if to say ‘please, please, do something to stop her’. Jean just smiled as he picked up his cup. “We aren’t so busy I can’t take care of my future son in law.”

It took a concentrated effort to not dump the soda into his lap in shock. Marco blanched making the freckles on his face stood out that much more. 

“Mom!”

She did a fair approximation of a wide eyed ‘who me’ look Jean had seen Marco use on occasion. “Yes dear?” 

“Please.”  

She laughed, a soft bell like noise, then winked. “Yes yes, I know, I’m ruining the mood. Your father made tiramisu for the desert tonight, I’ll put some aside for after closing. I assume Jean will be coming home with us? In the guest room.” 

Marco muttered something but it was impossible to hear it because his hands were over his face, muffling his words but it seemed to be enough for his mother because, after patting Jean’s shoulder, she left the small employee lounge/locker room. 

Leaving just the two of them, which was suddenly a very awkward prospect. What Jean could see of Marco’s face was now blazing red. He wasn’t sure if he should ask what Mrs. Bodt had been going on about or just leave it because he wasn’t so sure he could even begin to process any more information tonight anyway. 

Maybe she’d just been teasing, the next stage in her ‘Please, Jean, you’re family’ reasoning. From ‘come inside, sit down’ to ‘stay the night whenever’ to ‘marry my son’. Which was going to be hard since last Jean had checked, all of 4 days ago, Marco had been happily dating Mina and had no interest in anyone else, let alone him. Or anyone male. Ever. 

Not that Marco had any issues with him being gay. Jean didn’t think a more encouraging wingman than Marco had ever existed, to be honest. He was always game to assess the (painfully small) gay or bi population of their school, point out guys he thought were Jean’s type (nevermind that at this point Jean’s type was ‘would go out with me and eventually touch my dick’) and had helped him pull up the confidence to ask Armin out. Hell, he’d helped him plan out the date, with liberal amounts of teasing as he did so. 

Marco was basically the best friend Jean could have asked for.

That said he didn’t look like he planned to be less mortified anytime soon so Jean turned his attention to his food. His favorite thing at Bodt’s, chicken marsala with a few breadsticks that looked and smelled like they’d been injected with garlic butter sticking out of the bowl. He hadn’t ordered anything when they’d come in but he wasn’t surprised that he was being fed. Marco’s mother seemed to default to food when something worried her and having Jean, shoeless, bleeding, and sort of filthy stumble into her restaurant had hit all those marks. 

Now he was slightly cleaner after hogging the employee bathroom, wearing Marco’s rugby jersey and a pair of jeans slightly too long and too big in the waist for him, and starving. 

And confused. So completely and utterly confused. 

But at least there was food, he was somewhere safe, and Marco was here. All weirdness aside having Marco around always helped him slow down and think things through better. 

“So.” Marco said after a few moments of silence (and Jean shoving breadsticks into his mouth. He didn’t know what Marco’s father did to them but they were always amazing.) “Mina and I broke up. Last month.” 

Jean stopped chewing and, catching Marco’s serious expression, forced himself to swallow his mouthful. It felt uncomfortable going down and settled heavily in his stomach. “You what? A month ago?” 

Why did he feel like this was going somewhere weird? 

Marco shrugged. “I mean. You know the whole different schools thing, with her lacrosse schedule and my rugby stuff and working here so often. We barely saw each other and she was getting tired of it.” 

Yeah, Jean knew about all of that, he’d listened to Marco worry about it for the past year after all, but a break up? A month ago? Marco told him everything, even the dumb shit that Jean could probably go without knowing about, so how had this just gone unmentioned for so long? 

“And maybe I’m a little bit into guys. Which. Was also a thing. That Mina had a problem with.” Jean dropped his fork. Brown eyes rolled heavenward. “And maybe I told my parents and now my mother thinks we’re going to get married even though I keep telling her that newfound bisexulaity does not mean I have to date you or that I’m ready to date anyone at all right now. And I quit the team. Oh, and we’re in a survival game to either become the god of space and time or *die* and have phones that tell us the future. And someone kidnapped you. So. Weird month all around. You want my breadsticks?” 

Jean knew his mouth was hanging open but he couldn’t dredge up the presence of mind to care or do anything about it. What the fuck was going on? He’d been drugged and kidnapped and was now in some sort of messed up alternate dimension or something, with life or death ‘games’, impossible phone apps, and bisexual best friends (which, no, was not on the same level) ...was that possible? Could he have really ended up in another dimension. 

It wasn’t that much stranger than what else was going on, was it? 

“I have a headache.” 

Marco blinked at him then sat up straighter, expression alarmed. “Do you? I think there’s probably something in the first aid kit and...I should look at your feet anyway.” 

Jean looked down at the mention of his feet. He’d cleaned them up in the bathroom then limped gingerly to the chair to press a towel against them but the pain had faded to just a faint sting so he’d sort of forgot about it. Now that he was reminded the sting was back and, while he wasn’t bleeding anymore, the skin was red and raw. 

A packet of pills was dropped in front of him, promising pain relief in bold yellow letters, and then Marco was dragging his chair closer to Jean’s side of the table. A roll of gauze, antiseptic cream, and a set of tweezers found their way out of the first aid box.

“Gimmie your foot.” 

Jean hesitated for a moment, brain still trying to grasp what was going on. Four hours ago he’d been informed he was taking part in a game where killing the other players was his goal. Three hours ago he’d pushed someone who’d been keeping him captive and drugged in a basement thrown down a flight of stairs then found out his best (and by some metrics only) friend was also playing the game and had no problem handing out his life to him and now said best friend was coming out to him. This was just…he felt like the world was trying to close in on him, bury him beneath one shock after another, and it was only sheer force of will keeping him upright. 

And he was pretty sure he was about out of ‘will’. Hell, he wasn’t even sure why he was trying to keep it together when what he really wanted to do was fall apart because what the fuck was going on? He’d just wanted to go on a date with a cute guy and now all of this. 

He felt like he couldn’t even get a second to breathe.

“Jean.” Marco touched his knee gently. “We should really get your feet wrapped up.”  

Another look down at his feet and then he nodded slowly. He brought his foot up and let Marco guide it the rest of the way into his lap. Jean took the pills then watched Marco work, unwilling to focus on anything except the feelings of hands on his skin and his friend’s face. It was a blessedly short process, the tweezers unneeded because Jean had managed to scrub out everything earlier, and soon enough his feet were slathered in cream, bandaged, and socks were pulled on. 

In spite of how quick it was Jean still felt like he was doing to pass out at any moment. Between how warm the restaurant was, a nice change after days in that chilly basement, being full of food, Marco’s soothing presence and careful touches, and finally feeling like he was somewhere he could relax he was almost half asleep.

“I’m going to see about those shoes then we can go. You look beat.” 

Jean snorted and pressed a hand to his eyes. “Understatement.” 

Marco hummed and then he was gone. Jean sighed, shifting to press his forehead against the table, and tried to keep his mind clear. There was a lot he needed to think about, to consider and weigh and pick apart, but he didn’t want to do it now.

Not when he was like this. 

If there was really some sort of sick kill or be killed scenario taking place and he and Marco were part of it they needed a plan. A real solid plan so they both could make it out alive and, preferably, without having to kill anyone. That meant staying safe and not doing anything that could make anyone think they had advanced knowledge of events. 

That meant planning. That meant making sure they understood the rules and could find a loophole. 

_ “Fuck, Marco, keep your phone. Idiot.” Jean grumbled. “Neither of us is dying so save the martyr act.” _

_ Marco’s smile was lopsided and a little sad but he nodded anyway.  _

He could do it. He would do it, keep them both safe. He had to, anything else was unacceptable. He owed Marco this much, at the vest least for putting up with his shit for all these years (though not always nicely or graciously) and always being willing to drop everything to help him out. He would make this work.

But not tonight. He was rattled, confused, fighting against his own thoughts. He needed to be clear headed, sharp and able to focus. He had to-

A loud echoing crack broke the peaceful feeling. He jumped up, chair toppling over with a clatter, heart feeling like it had jumped as well and lodged in his throat. He stood, head whipping around towards all the corners, and listened. 

Everything was quiet. 

It shouldn’t have been so quiet. It was around 9pm but Bodt’s didn’t close until 10 and, until a second ago, cheerful chatter and laughter had been a familiar background track for his thoughts. The muffled sounds of the restaurant were well known to him, he and Marco had been hanging out in the backroom to do homework and watch movies and just kill time since middle school. This silence...This was different. 

A shrill shriek, ear splittingly high, rang out only to be cut off as another crack tore the air. It was, Jean thought, a lot like a firecracker going off and yet nothing like that at all. He swallowed nervously then crept towards the door. He pressed his ear against it, holding his breath as he tried to make out any sounds in the hallway. 

Nothing. 

He pushed the door open and found the short hallway behind the kitchen empty of everything save a mop bucket and Marco’s gym bag. Bodt’s was set up so the front end included all the customer seating and then the bar, with the kitchen an open area behind the bar, and then the hallway off the side of the kitchen. Marco’s father prided himself on his cleanliness and attention to detail and allowing himself to be watched at all times by customers reflected that. 

Mr. Bodt also, according to Marco, believed that having people in his kitchen, appreciating his food, was the best feeling in the world. Mr. Bodt was a good man, more of a father to Jean than his own had ever been, just as kind and patient as his son, willing to work 6 days a week from sunup to sundown, and Jean had never so much as heard more than mild complaint from him about it. 

And he never would. 

The man, in his white chefs coat and checkered pants, was in a crumpled heap on floor, a large part of his face gone. What was left was a pulpy mixture of reds and pinks, skin that was oddly gray, and a single dull brown eye staring vacantly at nothing. There was a scattering of red across the work station behind the bar and a puddle forming on the floor around Marco’s father.

Jean’s mind was blank except for a strange hysterical thought that Mr. Bodt would not appreciate all that mess. 

“Now.” A cheerful voice declared. “Who’s next?”

He managed to pry his eyes away from Marco’s father. He shuffled to the side, pressing himself against the wall, then peeked around the corner to look into the front. His eyes darted around, took in all the pale faced and wide eyed customers in their seats, Marco’s mother standing in front of an empty booth with her arms wrapped around one of the waitresses (Hannah?) who was crying silently. Mrs. Bodt’s eyes were big, her lips pressed into a tight bloodless line, but she wasn’t crying. 

There was red, like someone had thrown sauce at the wall, over one of the booths but Jean couldn’t see who might have been sitting there from where he was. 

In the center of it all, holding a very large gun (and Jean didn’t know much about guns, or anything really, but he knew ‘large’ when he saw it.) in one hand and a phone in the other, was a man. He was tall and broad and...wearing a cape and what looked like some kind of...spandex jumpsuit. He was looking to the side, not towards Jean, but he could see part of his face and that his eyes and nose and forehead looked to be covered in a black mask. His hair was exposed, a shock of golden blond, and his smile was a wide friendly one. 

“You.” The man pointed at a table where a man, a woman, and a young girl were sitting. “Let’s hear what my Justice Diary has to say.” 

There was a click and then a voice, a low and female, spoke. “Man at the third table, eating with wife and daughter. Waits until his wife is asleep every night to go to his daughter’s bed. Daughter is nine years old.” Another click.

The quiet was heavy, accusatory. The man was going purple in the face, eyes bulging and mouth open like a gross halloween mask, and shaking his head furiously. 

“That! That is a lie. That isn’t-You can’t!”

Another crack, this one so loud it left Jean’s ears ringing. The man’s head exploded outward, blood, brain, and bits of bone, then spilled out, reminding Jean vaguely of a watermelon belong cracked open. He pressed a hand over his mouth, either to stop himself from making noise or being sick he wasn’t sure, and ducked back so he was fully in the hallway. 

His phone vibrated in his back pocket. 

He pulled it out, half convinced he’d see the words Dead End again. 

_ Nine will kill the woman at table three. The group of teenagers in booth six. The woman in front of booth nine. Nine’s phone will tell him Twelve is guilty. Nine will kill Twelve and then force me to leave the restaurant with him.  _

Click. “The woman at table three. She pretends she doesn’t know what her husband is doing and doesn’t listen when her daughter tries to tell her.” Click.

Another gunshot and a child’s scream almost made Jean drop his phone. He pressed himself tighter against the wall, breathing hard behind his hand. His eyes drifted, against his will, back to Marco’s father. 

Was that what Marco was going to look like after this guy shot him? His grip on his phone tightened.

No. That wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to let it. Marco wasn’t going to die and he was not going to end up back in that fucking basement. 

He just had to-

Click. “Booth Six. Two boys, shoplifters.” Click.

A girl sobbed loudly and someone else started begging but the words sounded garbled, as if he was far away from them and not just a few meters away. Jean forced himself to move, hand falling from his face to hold the wall, to look back out and-

Marco’s mother was looking straight at him, hazel eyes dark and angry. She blinked with slow, careful deliberateness then her eyes darted to the side. She repeated the motion but, other than her eyes, was statue still. Hannah was clinging to her, mouth open in a soundless O of terror. 

Click. “Booth six. Girl, bullies her classmates. Girl, was mean to her younger sister.” Click. The masked man tsked then started walking over to them, seemingly unmoved by the pleading and crying. Jean tuned it out as well and made himself stare at Marco’s mother.

He had no idea what Mrs. Bodt was trying to direct him to. What was he supposed to

A hand wrapped around his mouth and an arm around his chest. The last thing he saw before he was hauled down the hallway was Mrs. Bodt’s shoulders sagging in apparent relief. The hand on his mouth, Marco’s, stayed put even when Jean started thrashing and caught him with an elbow to the gut. 

He was being dragged to the back door but they couldn’t leave. Marco’s mother was still in there, all of those other people, that man was going to kill more-

Another crack and screams, then they were tumbling into the alley behind the restaurant and the heavy emergency door was swinging shut after them. It closed while Jean stared at it, throat painfully tight. He imagined he could hear the lock engage, even though that was impossible, with a painful finality. 

The only way back in was the front door.

“Jean.” Marco’s voice was low and urgent but when Jean looked up at him his face was devoid of anything. Eyes blank, expression mild; it was like he wasn’t there at all. “We need to go before Nine comes after us.” 

Jean closed his eyes. The basement door. The sliver of light. It opened up and the light on the other side was near blinding after so long with that single weak bulb. The man was tall, wide shouldered. When he went down the stairs, arms pinwheeling, something billowed after him. 

A cape. 

Nine.

_ Nine. _

\---

Marco’s house was cold. Jean couldn’t remember it ever being cold. Marco had turned on the heat then wrapped blankets around him but, sitting huddled on the couch with a family portrait staring at him accusingly, Jean was freezing. He was shaking, teeth chattering, and could barely feel his fingers. 

“I’ll make tea.” Marco said, hands dropping from where they’d been trying to rub warmth into Jean’s arms.

He hated tea.

“We have that herbal stuff you like. And those cookies, the shortbread ones.” Was added a moment later. Jean nodded; he did like that ‘herbal stuff’. Marco’s mother got it special from somewhere for the restaurant but also brought some back to have in the kitchen for him. She didn’t have to do things like that but she did anyway, claimed to be happy to do it. 

She brought him tea, kept peanuts out of the house because he was allergic, and made sure his favorite cookies were always fresh and in the cookie jar and he...he had lead some insane murderer into her restaurant. Mr. Bodt was dead and he was sitting in their living room, under their blankets, while their son made him  _ tea. _

He should have known better. Some crazy person who’d grabbed him and kept him locked up, who was going to try to kill him eventually to win this game, wasn’t just going to sulk somewhere. Of course they’d been followed.

So stupid. 

He could hear Marco shuffling around in the kitchen. He turned his head slightly to watch. It felt like it took forever, like he was moving in slow motion, like his head was too heavy and going to roll right off of his shoulders and crack onto the floor

_ Blood, brain, and bits of bone _

If he wasn’t careful. 

Marco set the kettle on the stove then pulled down the container the tea was in. Scooped out into a steeper, steeper dropped into a mug, then he reached up to grab the cookie jar. Cookies, delicate looking circles with bits of red, cranberry, were put on a plate. Marco paused for a moment, head tilting to the side, and then sugar and milk joined everything else on the counter. 

“Jean? Do you want-”

“How are you so calm?”

Marco turned to look at him, face just as blank as it’d been since he’d practically carried Jean from the restaurant to the house a few blocks away. It hadn’t taken long, even with him refusing to walk on his own, maybe ten minutes. Just long enough that they’d heard sirens wailing in the distance before walking inside. The Bodt’s lived in the business district, taking up a small single floor condo in a larger building, and Jean had always liked that you could see the street the restaurant was on from the living room.

The curtains were drawn today. He was pretty Marco had done it after dumping him onto the couch. 

“Your dad-” He stopped, choking on his words. Pictures of Marco’s dad, of all three of them and Marco’s older sister who’d long since moved out, were everywhere. There were even an embarrassing amount of pictures with him in them, usually tucked against Marco’s side and grinning like an idiot, framed and hung up. 

He didn’t deserve that. 

Marco blinked then turned around again. “I saw.”

“We didn’t even call the cops.” Jean said, hugging himself tighter. His jaw was aching and his teeth felt strange as they tapped against each other. “We just left. We just...we-he killed people and we left.”

“I’m sure everyone nearby or walking past was calling.” Marco said, so fucking reasonable. “And. I had to keep you safe. Nine was going to take you and I couldn’t let that happen. I won’t let anyone take you.”

Jean gaped at Marco’s back then looked down at himself, bundled up so gently in these blankets, wearing Marco’s clothes, treated so carefully. He was smothered, suddenly, felt like he was being strangled by all the things around him. Things Marco’s parents had loving brought into their home, paid for, the jersey Marco so prized-

The blankets fell away and he managed to get out of the pants, was tugging the jersey off when he was grabbed and wrestled to the floor. He was breathing hard, crying, pushing at Marco and then pressing his face against his shirt and

“This is my fault. He was chasing me and it’s my fault. I killed your family.” 

Marco’s hand touched the back of his head and stroked his hair. “No, it’s not. That guy, Nine, must be crazy, and that’s not your fault. You can’t- It was my idea to go to the restaurant. I didn’t think we’d be in any danger.” 

Jean shook his head. “He wants me. My diary said he was going to shoot you and make me go with him. He was going to kill you.” 

The very thought made him sick, stomach churning and pile rising up in the back of his throat. This was real. It was real and there were people, eleven other people, out there who were going to try to kill them, and it wasn’t a joke or a game.

This was life or death, his and Marco’s. 

“I know.” 

He didn’t want Marco to die. 

“It might be fine.” Marco said quietly. “My mom might be fine, you know? And I’m alive and you’re here, with me, and our diaries said that wasn’t what was going to happen so don’t assume the worst yet.” 

Fingers threaded through his hair and Jean found himself nodding even though he was unsure which of the Marco was trying to convince.  

“Okay.” 

Maybe he was right. Maybe Mrs. Bodt was fine. The diary hadn’t given names just

_ The woman in front of booth nine. _

He tried to think, to remember if anyone else had been standing aside from Mrs. Bodt and Hannah. He couldn’t quite see it in his head, couldn’t remember, why couldn’t he remember? It was already getting dull, slipping through his fingers like he was trying to clutch water, but he couldn’t

“C’mon.” Marco nudged him lightly. “Tea. It might warm you up, and then you can get some sleep. I’ll...try calling the restaurant and my mom’s phone.”

The tea and the two cookies he forced down tasted like sand in his mouth. When Marco pushed him back into his bed, ignoring Jean’s mumbled protest about sleeping on the futon or the couch he found himself holding onto his friend, not wanting to be left alone. Their phones were close, side by side on Marco’s dresser, and the light was on but

But. It was still so cold. Colder than the basement had been. 

Marco slipped under the covers without a word, sitting up against the headboard, and pulled Jean close. 

He would have thought sleep would be slow in coming but, with Marco’s heart thumping under his ear, Jean was asleep between one worried thought and the next. 

\---

Jean woke up with a scream trapped behind his teeth and dreams of blood and a cold basement behind his eyelids. He reached without thinking for Marco but came up empty. He picked his head up, squinting in the darkness for the alarm clock he knew was next to Marco’s bed. The bright red numbers told him he’d only been asleep an hour or so. 

He felt like it had been less than that. That he’d closed his eyes, fallen into a nightmare, and woken up all in the same minute. He was just as tired, maybe more tired. 

Water was running somewhere in the house. The shower? Marco? Probably. Had to be, who else could it be? Not-

He pushed himself up to his feet, shivering when the blankets slipped off of him, and padded out into the hallway. The bathroom was right across from Marco’s room; the door was open a crack, letting light spill out into the dark hallway, and the sound of the shower running was louder now. 

Jean stepped closer, intending to knock and let Marco know he was going to be in the kitchen, but he found himself peering through the crack, fist just above the door’s surface. 

He could see Marco, most of him anyway, through the fogged up glass of the shower door. Tan skin, shifting over muscle, wet and glistening. Marco was under the spray, head down and hair hanging limply, one hand against the wall and the other was moving in a motion he knew well. 

Was Marco really- A exhale into a quiet moan told Jean that yes, Marco was really. And he was...really watching. Standing in a dark hallway in the dead of night watching his best friend jerk off in the shower. 

He could no longer tell where that ranked on the fucked up shit scale. His scale was blown, shattered, crushed under the weight of everything. He was pretty sure this was a weird time to be jerking off but then, everyone dealt with things in their own way (He, for example, had bullied his middle school crush to cope.) and who was he to judge. 

There wasn’t much excuse for what he was doing though and yet there he was. Still watching the way the muscles in Marco’s arm flexed, the way his legs moved, the way his head dropped further forward and

Quiet, so quiet, a hitch of breath and “Jean" as Marco's body went rigid. 

Jean stepped back, heart pounding, and hurried back to the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, hands curled into fists, and teeth digging into his lip.

That. 

That was. 

Unexpected. 

He wished he hadn’t watched, hadn’t heard that. He wasn’t going to be able to look Marco in the eye without feeling like an asshole, as if he wasn’t already guilty of enough. 

_ Nine’s phone will tell him Twelve is guilty. _

_ Justice Diary _

_ The man abusing his daughter. The woman turning a blind eye. Shoplifters.  _

_ Nine’s phone will tell him Twelve is guilty. _

Jean’s phone came to life, screen turning on as it vibrated. 

Someone pounded on the front door. 

The shower stopped. 


End file.
